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Modelling and Solving the Joint Order Batching and Picker Routing Problem in Inventories

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Combinatorial Optimization (ISCO 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9849))

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Abstract

In this work we investigate the problem of order batching and picker routing in inventories. These are labour and capital intensive problems, often responsible for a substantial share of warehouse operating costs. In particular, we consider the case of online grocery shopping in which orders may be composed of dozens of items. To the best of our knowledge, no exact algorithms have been proposed for this problem. We therefore introduce three integer programming formulations for the joint problem of batching and routing, one of them involving exponentially many constraints to enforce connectivity requirements and two compact formulations based on network flows. For the former we implement a branch-and-cut algorithm which separates connectivity constraints. We built a test instance generator, partially based on publicly-available real world data, in order to compare empirically the three formulations.

Cristiano Arbex Valle is funded by CPNq grant 401367/2014-2. Alexandre Salles da Cunha is partially funded by FAPEMIG grant CEX - PPM-00187-15 and CNPq grants 303677/2015-5, 471464/2013-9 and 200493/2014-0.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ciência da Computação, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Cristiano Arbex Valle & Alexandre Salles da Cunha

  2. Mathematical Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

    John E. Beasley

Authors
  1. Cristiano Arbex Valle
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  2. John E. Beasley
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  3. Alexandre Salles da Cunha
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Correspondence to Cristiano Arbex Valle .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Salerno , Fisciano, Italy

    Raffaele Cerulli

  2. Kyoto University , Kyoto, Japan

    Satoru Fujishige

  3. LAMSADE, Université Paris-Dauphine , Paris , France

    A. Ridha Mahjoub

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Valle, C.A., Beasley, J.E., da Cunha, A.S. (2016). Modelling and Solving the Joint Order Batching and Picker Routing Problem in Inventories. In: Cerulli, R., Fujishige, S., Mahjoub, A. (eds) Combinatorial Optimization. ISCO 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9849. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45587-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45587-7_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-45586-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-45587-7

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