Research On Space Allocation And Stock Replenishment For The Forward Area In The Distribution Center

The new global economy has increased the pressure on distributors to rapidly supply products to customers. In such a competitive market, filling customer orders within a 24-h period is becoming the new standard. Meanwhile, the number of different stock keeping units that must be delivered is exploding, which means that low volumes of more and more numerous stock keeping units have to be delivered more frequently and quickly. Needless to say, distribution centers have no choice but to improve their order fulfillment operations through better storage, picking, and routing strategies.When a large number of SKUs need to be picked in small quantities, DCs often divide the storage area into two parts:the reserve area and the forward area. Given this context, the work we must deal with is to decide where to locate the different SKUs, how to collect them, and how much space should be allocated to each one in the forward area. In addition, these managers have to determine replenishment strategies that will guarantee product availability in the forward area. In the future, distribute centers must make dynamic storage strategy to adjust short-term change, and provide sufficient stock for synchronization needs.Based on the research about space allocation and stock replenishment in a distribution center home and abroad done before, we do simulation on space allocation and stock replenishment in a distribution center base on industrial enterprise data. Firstly, we build DC replenishment system with four different ratios that can be used to sort the list, each producing different results. These four ratios are product demand frequency, demand quantity, the average picked quantity ratio of product, and the average case ratio of product. After all, I set up mathematical models for each evaluation ratio with the purpose of laying the foundation for the simulation. Secondly,I generate the list of space allocate based on the ratio of replenishment efficiency evaluation, and then bring forward four replenishment heuristics in order to minimize the number of product stockouts, at last I use heuristics to optimize the space allocation and stock replenishment strategy for the distribution center in the industrial enterprise.Finally, I present the simulation model based on real data, and then use SPSS to analysis the replenishment efficiency under different combinations of space allocation and stock replenishment algorithm, find the best combination of space allocation and stock replenishment algorithm. The study shows that selecting the right space allocation and stock replenishment can significantly reduce the number of stockouts in the forward area, thus improving the distribution center's productivity.