Online rescheduling of multiple picking agents for warehouse management

In this paper, we present a solution for a dynamic rescheduling problem involving new orders arriving randomly while static orders have been given in advance in warehouse environments. We propose two variations of an incremental static scheduling scheme: one based on the steepest descent insertion,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRobotics and computer-integrated manufacturing Vol. 27; no. 1; pp. 62 - 71
Main Authors Rubrico, Jose I.U., Higashi, Toshimitu, Tamura, Hirofumi, Ota, Jun
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2011
Subjects
Algorithms
Automation
Dynamic scheduling
On-line systems
Online
Online algorithm
Picking
Rescheduling
Searching
Warehouse management
Warehouses
Dynamic scheduling
Online algorithm
Warehouse management
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Summary:In this paper, we present a solution for a dynamic rescheduling problem involving new orders arriving randomly while static orders have been given in advance in warehouse environments. We propose two variations of an incremental static scheduling scheme: one based on the steepest descent insertion, called OR1, and the other, on multistage rescheduling, called OR2. Both techniques are enhanced by a local search procedure specifically designed for the problem at hand. We also implemented several existing online algorithms to our problem for evaluative purposes. Extensive statistical experiments based on real picking data indicate that the proposed methodologies are competitive with existing online schedulers and show that load-balancing algorithms, such as OR1, yield the best results on the average and that OR2 is effective in reducing the picking time when dynamism is low to moderate.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0736-5845
1879-2537
DOI:10.1016/j.rcim.2010.06.011