Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

An Empirical Study About The Effectiveness Of Lean Empowerment In Warehouses, Kai Furmans, Payam Dehdari Jan 2014

An Empirical Study About The Effectiveness Of Lean Empowerment In Warehouses, Kai Furmans, Payam Dehdari

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

Lean Management is well established in production environments. Some empirical evidences are available which suggest that in production systems lean management achieves positive results. For warehousing, some works have already been done, which deal with the application and adaption of lean tools for usage in warehousing. In order to answer the question, whether the application of lean tools leads to a better performance however, no study is available today. Therefore, an empirical study has been conducted, where the effectiveness of lean empowerment has been tested and compared to the performance of warehouse, who continued to work as before.


Clickstream Big Data And “Delivery Before Order Making” Mode For Online Retailers, Yeming Yale Gong, Haoxuan Xu Jan 2014

Clickstream Big Data And “Delivery Before Order Making” Mode For Online Retailers, Yeming Yale Gong, Haoxuan Xu

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

Our research is inspired by a leading online retailer using clickstream big data to estimate customer demand and then ship items to customers or hubs near customers by a mode of “delivery before order making” (DBOM) mode. Using clickstream data to obtain advance demand information in order quantities, we integrate the forecasting with a singleitem uncapacitated dynamic lot sizing problem in a rolling-horizon environment. Using the simulated clickstream data, we evaluate the performance of DBOM mode.


A Framework For The Robust Design Of Unit Load Storage Systems, Marc Goetschalckx, Edward Huang, Pratik Mital Jan 2014

A Framework For The Robust Design Of Unit Load Storage Systems, Marc Goetschalckx, Edward Huang, Pratik Mital

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

The unit load storage assignment problem determines the assignment of a set of unit loads with known arrival and departure times to a set of unit storage locations in a warehouse. The material handling device(s) can carry at most one unit load at the time. In this research it is assumed that each of the storage locations can be accessed directly without load relocations or rearrangements and that the travel times between the storage locations and from and to the warehousing docks can be computed in advance. The objective is to minimize the total travel time of the material handling …


Grid Facilities Design: Dynamic Modular Deployment Of Production, Handling And Storage Resources, Suzanne Marcotte, Benoit Montreuil Jan 2014

Grid Facilities Design: Dynamic Modular Deployment Of Production, Handling And Storage Resources, Suzanne Marcotte, Benoit Montreuil

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

To survive and thrive in a fast-moving environment, facilities must be designed to show adaptability, flexibility and robustness. As some facilities are depicted by heavy and sophisticated equipment costly and hard to displace, others are composed of moveable workstations with highly flexible workers. In most cases, the trade-off is between the cost of redeploying the resources and the excessive cost of material handling and storage incurred by an inefficient deployment of the resources. We propose a design strategy based on (1) conceiving and designing the facility as a stable grid of modules, (2) dynamically deploying production, storage and handling resources …


An Analysis Of Single-Command Operations In A Mobile Rack (As/Rs) Served By A Single Order Picker, Amine Hakim Guezzen, Zaki Sari Jan 2014

An Analysis Of Single-Command Operations In A Mobile Rack (As/Rs) Served By A Single Order Picker, Amine Hakim Guezzen, Zaki Sari

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

A Mobile rack Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (MAS/ RS) are picker-to-stock retrieval model which are a variation of the multi aisles AS/RS. This mobile storage system is composed of racks moving laterally on rails so that one can open an aisle between any two adjacent racks, the input/output system, the storage and retrieval (S/R) machine and the computer management system or the control system. Evaluating an AS/RS could be done using several performance indicators, the two most important ones are: The utilization rate of the S/R machine and the average time necessary to serve storage or retrieval requests (the …


Throughput Analysis Of S/R Shuttle Systems, Georg Kartnig, Jörg Oser Jan 2014

Throughput Analysis Of S/R Shuttle Systems, Georg Kartnig, Jörg Oser

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

Shuttle systems are used in high performance automated storage/retrieval unit load systems. Each storage level is serviced by one transfer car travelling in dual command operation. One buffer slot is located at both ends of each level. This decouples horizontal travel from vertical input/output moves, which in this case requires two independent vertical reciprocating lifts at each end of the aisle. Other systems work with only one lift used in lower throughput applications. The content of this paper is treated in the following sections starting with a problem definition and a literature survey. This is followed by a detailed functional …


A New Approach For Generating Facility Layouts Using An Algorithmic Approach, Volker Sadowsky, Christian Mosblech Jan 2014

A New Approach For Generating Facility Layouts Using An Algorithmic Approach, Volker Sadowsky, Christian Mosblech

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

In this paper a new approach is described to automatically create layouts for material flow systems. The current research in progress aiming at adopting the methods and algorithms of the Electronic Design Automation to be used in logistics planning is presented. These methods are already applied to create microchips being multiple times more complex than material flow systems while following the same goal: Functional units have to be placed on a predefined area and are linked by connections weighted differently. This basic requirement can be applied to microchip designs as well as material flow systems. The common condition is to …


Designing Retail Facilities To Improve Product Exposure, Pratik J. Parikh, Corinne Mowrey Jan 2014

Designing Retail Facilities To Improve Product Exposure, Pratik J. Parikh, Corinne Mowrey

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

A retail facility should effectively engage consumers during their shopping trips if they want to convert demand into purchases. Unfortunately, the complexity of the retailing environment and lack of scientific tools often results in gut-feel approaches experimented in practice. A key factor to retail design often alluded to, but rarely analyzed, is product exposure to the travelling shopper. We define the extent of the shopper's field of vision in order to determine the actual exposure of products experienced by a traveling shopper. In so doing, we can explore the effect rack orientation has on product exposure. Our main contributions include …


Model And Algorithm For Supply Chain Analysis In Energy-Wood Industry, Thorsten Schmidt, Hannes Hahne Jan 2014

Model And Algorithm For Supply Chain Analysis In Energy-Wood Industry, Thorsten Schmidt, Hannes Hahne

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

Short rotation coppices are a renewable energy concept based on renewable raw material. This paper proposes a model and calculation method which generates valid supply chains using quantified technological and infrastructural constraints.


Modeling Conveyor Merges In Zone Picking Systems, Rene De Koster, Ivo J.B.F. Adan, Jacques Resing Jan 2014

Modeling Conveyor Merges In Zone Picking Systems, Rene De Koster, Ivo J.B.F. Adan, Jacques Resing

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

In many order picking and sorting systems conveyors are used to transport products through the system and to merge multiple flows of products into one single flow. In practice, conveyor merges are potential points of congestion, and consequently can lead to a reduced throughput. In this paper, we study merges in a zone picking system. The performance of a zone picking system is, for a large part, determined by the performance of the merge locations. We model the system as a closed queueing network that describes the conveyor, the pick zones, and the merge locations. The resulting model does not …


Integrate Vehicle Routing And Truck Sequencing In Cross-Docking Operations, Ching-Jung Ting, Ting-Don Chen Jan 2014

Integrate Vehicle Routing And Truck Sequencing In Cross-Docking Operations, Ching-Jung Ting, Ting-Don Chen

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

Cross-docking is a an important logistics strategy in which freight is unloaded from inbound vehicles and directly loaded into outbound vehicles, with little or no storage in between. This study considers a crossdocking system which combines the vehicle routing problem with crossdocking (VRPCD) for both inbound and outbound operations and truck sequencing problem at docks. The objective is to minimize the logistics center operation costs and transportation costs. We first formulated the integrated problem with a mixed integer programming model. Since VRPCD and sequencing problems are NP-hard, the integrated problem is also an NP-hard problem. We propose an ant colony …


Integrating Analysis Into A Warehouse Design Workflow, Leon Mcginnis, Timothy Sprock Jan 2014

Integrating Analysis Into A Warehouse Design Workflow, Leon Mcginnis, Timothy Sprock

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

Supply chain analyses, including those related to material handling systems, are typically purpose-built to answer specific questions and therefore have many different implementations depending on the question, the instance data, and the solver. The purpose-built nature of these models makes it difficult to integrate them into an iterative design workflow. Despite the myriad analysis implementations, the fundamental structure of these systems and their problem domain remains unchanged, suggesting that perhaps analyses could be automatically generated on demand, given an appropriate specification of the particular system to be analyzed. We apply model-based systems engineering (MBSE) methodologies to explore this possibility in …


Variation In Lifting Behavior During A Highly Repetitive Manual Material Task, Steven A. Lavender Jan 2014

Variation In Lifting Behavior During A Highly Repetitive Manual Material Task, Steven A. Lavender

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

Presenters will provide.


Data Model And Software Tools For Modeling Picking Operations, Jeffrey S. Smith Jan 2014

Data Model And Software Tools For Modeling Picking Operations, Jeffrey S. Smith

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

Presenter will provide.


Modular Design Of Physical Internet Transport, Handling And Packaging Containers, Benoit Montreuil, Eric Ballot, William Tremblay Jan 2014

Modular Design Of Physical Internet Transport, Handling And Packaging Containers, Benoit Montreuil, Eric Ballot, William Tremblay

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

This paper proposes a three‐tier characterization of Physical Internet containers into transport, handling and packaging containers. It first provides an overview of goods encapsulation in the Physical Internet and of the generic characteristics of Physical Internet containers. Then it proceeds with an analysis of the current goods encapsulation practices. This leads to the introduction of the three tiers, with explicit description and analysis of containers of each tier. The paper provides a synthesis of the proposed transformation of goods encapsulation and highlights key research and innovation opportunities and challenges for both industry and academia.


Robust Truckload Relay Network Design Under Demand Uncertainty, Hector A. Vergara, Zahra Mokhtari Jan 2014

Robust Truckload Relay Network Design Under Demand Uncertainty, Hector A. Vergara, Zahra Mokhtari

13th IMHRC Proceedings (Cincinnati, Ohio. USA – 2014)

This research addresses the issue of incorporating demand uncertainty in the strategic design of relay networks for truckload transportation. An existing composite variable mathematical model for the design of hybrid relay networks is extended by developing its robust counterpart. The proposed approach considers uncertainty in the number of truckloads to be dispatched between a pair of nodes in the network which is characterized by a symmetric interval around the expected demand value. A two-step heuristic approach is used to solve the robust model. Several numerical experiments are carried out to study the differences between the solutions obtained with the robust …