Impact of Pickup/delivery Stations and Restoring Conveyor Locations on Retrieval Time Models of Flow Rack AS/RS

Abstract

This paper investigates the performance of flow-rack automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) configurations considering a large mix of different product types, which has not been studied in the literature. Specifically, this paper derives expected retrieval time models by analysing the impact of pickup/delivery stations and restoring conveyor locations based on randomised storage and retrieval. From comparison of results, a number of remarks are stated and used to further work related to flow-rack AS/RS. Although flow-rack AS/RS are typically used only for a few types of items, where each bin is dedicated to a particular item, severe competition faced by manufacturing companies requires adoption of various technologies in order to provide practical solutions. These results show that flow-rack systems may be beneficial to reducing inventory levels, while maintaining product variety and responding to customers' needs in a timely manner; thus they may be used to generate realistic production schedules that lower costs and increase customer satisfaction.

Department(s)

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Distribution & Warehousing Management; Engineering Economics; Logistics; Manufacturing Engineering Design; Production Research & Economics; Quality Control & Reliabilty

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2007 Taylor & Francis, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2007

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