Formulating and solving integrated order batching and routing in multi-depot AGV-assisted mixed-shelves warehouses

Understand

Different retail and e-commerce companies are facing the challenge of assembling large numbers of time-critical picking orders that include both small-line and multi-line orders.

• To reduce unproductive picker working time as in traditional picker-to-parts warehousing systems, different solutions are proposed in the literature and in practice.
• For example, in a mixed-shelves storage policy, items of the same stock keeping unit are spread over several shelves in a warehouse; or automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are used to transport the picked items from the storage area to packing stations instead of human pickers.
• This is the first paper to combine both solutions, creating what we call AGV-assisted mixed-shelves picking systems.