Variable Neighborhood Search for the Order Batching and Sequencing Problem with Multiple Pickers

Sebastian Henn ()
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Sebastian Henn: Faculty of Economics and Management, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg

No 120004, FEMM Working Papers from Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management

Abstract: Order picking deals with the retrieval of articles from their storage locations in order to satisfy customer requests. The transformation and consolidation of customer orders into picking orders (batches) is pivotal for the performance of order picking systems. Typically, customer orders have to be completed by certain due dates in order to avoid delays in production or in the shipment to customers. The composition of the batches, their processing times, their assignment to order pickers and the sequence according to which they are scheduled determine whether and the extent to which the due dates are missed. This article shows how Variable Neighborhood Descent and Variable Neighborhood Search can be applied in order to minimize the total tardiness of a given set of customer orders. In a series of extensive numerical experiments, the performance of the two approaches is analyzed for different problem classes. It is shown that the proposed methods provide solutions which may allow order picking systems to operate more efficiently.

Keywords: Warehouse Management; Order Batching; Batch Sequencing; Due Dates; Variable Neighborhood Descent; Variable Neighborhood Search (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2012-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp
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