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Design of diagonal cross-aisle warehouses with class-based storage assignment strategy

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Abstract

Non-traditional warehouses shorten the travelled paths to store and retrieve (S/R) the loads, thanks to additional aisles crossing the parallel racks. This paper provides the analytic model to best design a non-traditional warehouse for unit-load (UL) with diagonal cross-aisles and storage policy according to the class-based storage (CBS) strategy. The model minimizes the average single-command cycle time to S/R the loads, best sizing the classes, their shape, and the position/numbers of additional aisles. The focus is on both 2- and 3-CBS optimizing the number of diagonal cross-aisles to best balance the travel time reduction and the loss of storage space due to the aisles. Furthermore, benchmarking toward standard warehouses with no diagonal cross-aisles and random assignment strategy allows quantifying the positive impact of the proposed design configuration on the daily warehouse operations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Viale del Risorgimento, 2, 40136, Bologna, Italy

    Marco Bortolini, Emilio Ferrari, Mauro Gamberi & Francesco Pilati

  2. Department of Management and Engineering, University of Padova, Stradella San Nicola, 3, 36100, Vicenza, Italy

    Maurizio Faccio

Authors
  1. Marco Bortolini
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  2. Maurizio Faccio
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  3. Emilio Ferrari
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  4. Mauro Gamberi
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  5. Francesco Pilati
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Correspondence to Marco Bortolini.

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Bortolini, M., Faccio, M., Ferrari, E. et al. Design of diagonal cross-aisle warehouses with class-based storage assignment strategy. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 100, 2521–2536 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-018-2833-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-018-2833-9

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