Research On Order Picking System Improvement For Double Fast-pick Areas

As people’s demand for production and service becomes more and more diversified and personalized, the large-diversity and small-batch commodity distribution has been a major trend. The customer satisfaction degree not only depends on production quality, but also lies on logistics service. Productions which customers need should be delivered correctly and quickly. Logistics distribution center is achieving more and more a crucial role in supply chain management. Distribution center must improve its operational efficiency to respond for customer demand.Many warehouses use one or more separate area, called fast-pick areas, each with its own economics, for efficient order picking. The fast-pick area is designed to have a compact physical size and uses equipment such as a gravity flow rack that allows convenient and fast item access and extraction.Firstly, this paper reviews the current research on order picking systems. It introduces logistics distribution centers and fast-pick areas’concepts and relevant theories. It mainly focuses on the double fast-pick areas.Secondly, the paper explains the problems which need to be solved. It mainly includes two problems:how to allocate SKUs among different types of storage and how to improve order picking efficiency. Given this context, for the first problem, the work we need to handle is to decide where to locate the different goods and how much space should be allocated to each one in different fast-pick areas. Under consideration of some factors, for example, picks, quantities and size, the paper sets up mathematical models to solve this problem. For the latter problem, if the location for each goods is given, how to improve the order picking efficiency. This problem includes two basic questions. One is how to batch orders, another is how to select order-picking route. And then, the paper introduces the calculation process and builds models to minimize the picking time for one location.Finally, taking a distribution center as an example, the paper analyses it’s picking lists, storage mode, picking mode and restocking mode. Using the methods which above mentioned, the task is to improve its order picking system’s efficiency. The paper testifies the methods are feasibility and validation.