This paper considers storage assignment and routing policy issues for warehouses with multiple cross aisles. In such warehouses, order pickers walk or drive along the aisles to pick products from storage. They can change aisles at a number of cross aisles. These cross aisles are usually located at the front and the back of the warehouse, but there can also be one or more cross aisles at positions in between. Although these cross aisles provide greater flexibility in the routing of order pickers, they also bring more complexity in assigning items to storage and forming the route of order picking. In this paper, we propose several storage assignment policies and routing policies for the warehouse with multiple cross aisles, and investigate the effects of storage assignment policies and routing polices on the order picking performance. It is hoped that the results of this study can greatly benefit industrial engineers in improving the order picking operations of their distribution warehouses.
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