Problem Graph for Warehousing Design

Abstract

Warehousing plays a key role in supply chain performance (reactivity, flexibility, quality). In order to be competitive, reorganization of the warehouse is often required. The reorganization generally occurs via a design process based on two main stages. First, the designers have to precisely identify the design problems. Second, they have to design solutions to solve the problems. Academic researchers in warehousing design are used to studying all the different operations (receiving, storage, order picking, shipping) one by one while the warehouse design problems are linked together. As far as we know, the literature does not propose any model that capitalizes and links all the operations-related problems and solutions needed for warehouse designing. In this chapter, we propose a reference model as a graph including both the problems and the solutions advocated by a French third-party logistics (3PL) provider and quoted in the literature. The creation of such a model has been suggested in the state of the art in the literature. This model has been designed using a semantic and a syntax inspired by the TRIZ problem graph and with a taxonomy standardizing the vocabulary. The problem-solution graph is made up of 31 problems assessed by 31 evaluation parameters and 49 solutions defined by 73 action parameters. An industrial case study, in a French 3PL warehouse of 35,000 m² and 45,805 locations, proves the value of such a graph.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Problems and Performance Metrics Extract

# Problems	Problems	Performance metrics
1	Time to retrieve and put away; fork-lift driver; retrieve or put away; pallets load; V m>V d	Time to retrieve and put away; fork-lift driver; (min)
	Berry (1968)
2	Travel distance to retrieve and put away; fork-lift driver; retrieve or put away; pallets load; V m > V d	Travel distance to retrieve and put away; fork-lift driver (km)
	Cardona et al. (2012), Oh et al. (2006), Gue and Meller (2009), Lai et al. (2002), Rosenblatt and Roll (1984), Berry (1968), Tsui and Chang (1990, 1992), Mallette and Francis (1972), Roberts and Reed (1972), Bassan et al. (1980), Larson et al. (1997) and Gue (1999)
…	…	…
31	Replenishment rate; replenisher fork-lift driver; replenish; full pallets load; V m > V d	Replenishment rate
	Accorsi et al. (2012), Van den Berg et al. (1998), Bartholdi and Hackman (2008) and White and Francis (1971)

Appendix 2: Solutions and Action Parameters Extract

# Solutions	Solutions	Action parameters
1	[define; value; number; racks] & [define; value; groups number; racks] & [define; value; number; aisle] & [define; value; length; aisle] & [define; value; width; aisle] & [define; value; angle between cross-aisle; racks]	Number; racks
		Groups number; racks
		Number; aisle
		Length; aisle
		Width; aisle
		Angle between cross-aisle; racks
	Rao and Adil (2013a, b), Roodbergen and Vis (2006), Cardona et al. (2012) and Öztürkoğlu et al. (2012)
…	…	…
48	[Define with return (U), traversal (S), (N), midpoint, largest gap; value; sequence of picks; picker]	Sequence of picks; Picker
	Theys et al. (2010), Hwang et al. (2004), De Koster and Van Der Poort (1998), Petersen and Schmenner (1999), Pan et al. (2014)

Appendix 3: Problems Generate Problems Extract

Appendix 4: Problems Solved by Solutions Extract

Appendix 5: Solutions Generate Problems Extract

Appendix 6: Taxonomy Extract, Protégé Screenshot