Research And Application Of Picking Layout Design And Adjustment

By calculation, picking cost occupies 3.14% of China GDP, therefore, huge amount of cost can be saved if improving the social average picking efficiency. And it will be a good idea to choosing the right picking layout for a specific platform. The called picking layout design refers to the picking location arrangement for SKUs instead of the physical layout of racks. This paper is aimed to solve the problems in picking layout design with the methodology of logistics simulation.In part one, how to make sure that which sort of layout will deliver the best performance is studied. A objective function is created firstly, regarding the layout design, and through which the logic of the shortest distance between any two locations in picking is defined, so were the function of calculating picking a pallet of goods or pallets of goods. The concept of picking layout matrix is included in the simulation method with which simulations were done using the data from one of the Fortune 500 companies. The method can be used widely and the conclusion can be meaningful to those similar companies.In part two, how to adjust the picking layout was studied in order to return the picking to"in order status"from"chaos status"caused by seasonal change or customer taste change. An objective function is given firstly and also a method of transferring the uncertain problem into certain problem, and then 2 different methods is given: full-adjustment and partial-adjustment. A simulation was done at the end using the same data of last part. This method provides ways for initiating or resetting picking layout.The result of this study is meaningful for those manual picking distribution centers who are mainly focusing on high volume of fast moving consumer goods.