A New Mathematical Programming Formulation for the Single-Picker Routing Problem in a Single-Block Layout

Sebastian Henn, André Scholz (), Meike Stuhlmann and Gerhard Wäscher ()
Additional contact information
André Scholz: Faculty of Economics and Management, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Gerhard Wäscher: Faculty of Economics and Management, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg

No 150005, FEMM Working Papers from Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management

Abstract: The Single-Picker Routing Problem deals with the determination of sequences according to which items have to be picked in a distribution warehouse and the identification of the corresponding paths which have to be travelled by human operators (order pickers). The Single-Picker Routing Problem represents a special case of the classic Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and, therefore, can also be modeled as a TSP. However, the picking area of a warehouse typically possesses a block layout, i.e. the items are located in parallel picking aisles, and the order pickers can only change over to another picking aisle at certain positions by means of so-called cross aisles. In this paper, for the first time a mathematical programming formulation is proposed which takes into account this specific property. Based on extensive numerical experiments, it is shown that the proposed formulation is superior to standard TSP formulations.

Keywords: Order Picking; Picker Routing; Traveling Salesman Problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2015-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.fww.ovgu.de/fww_media/femm/femm_2015/2015_05.pdf First version, 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mag:wpaper:150005

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in FEMM Working Papers from Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Guido Henkel ().