Correlated storage assignment to minimize zone visits for BOM picking

摘要

The objective of this study is to design a correlated storage assignment system by storing items with demand dependences together to minimize zone visits when picking materials/parts in production line. The demand dependences can be obtained from the products' bill of materials (BOMs) and production rates. Due to the large number of materials in a BOM, picking capacity constraint is explicitly considered. A mathematical model is formulated and heuristic algorithms are proposed, including two direct heuristics and two hybrid genetic algorithms with different crossover mechanisms. Numerical experimentation shows that the hybrid genetic algorithm with 2-point crossover outperforms others and can be practical in warehouse design.