A heuristic based batching and assigning method for online customer orders

Fangyu Chen (), Yongchang Wei () and Hongwei Wang ()
Additional contact information
Fangyu Chen: Zhongnan University of Economics and Law
Yongchang Wei: Zhongnan University of Economics and Law
Hongwei Wang: Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, 2018, vol. 30, issue 4, No 2, 640-685

Abstract: Abstract In an online order picking system, customer orders arrive in real time and the picking information is updated dynamically. One challenging problem is how to process customer orders in a timely manner. In this paper, a nonparametric heuristic method, Green Area, is presented to address the real-time online order batching problems. By nonparametric, we mean that our method is independent of the parameters of a warehouse layout and the characteristics of customer orders; these parameters facilitates the implementation in real life. The advantages of this method are verified under different scenarios by simulations. Specifically, the influences of the arrival rate, the number of order pickers and the number of orders in the order service time are discussed. The results demonstrate that the Green Area method leads to shorter order service times than traditional methods for optimal batch sizes. Finally, we demonstrate that the Green Area method can be applied to online order picking systems with variable arrival rates.

Keywords: Warehouse management; Order picking; Batching; Assignment; Online customer order; Heuristic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10696-017-9277-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:flsman:v:30:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10696-017-9277-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10696

DOI: 10.1007/s10696-017-9277-7

Access Statistics for this article

Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal is currently edited by Hans Günther

More articles in Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().