Storage Capacity Estimation for Automated Storage/Retreval Systems under Stochastic Demand

Most of studies on automated storage/retrieval (AS/R) system assumed that storage capacity is given, although it is a very important decision variable in the design phase. We propose a simple algorithm to estimate the required storage capacity, i.e., number of aisles and number of openings in vertical and horizontal directions in each aisle, of an AS/R system under stochastic demand, in which storage requests occur endogenously and exogenously while the retrieval requests occur endogenously from the machines. Two design criteria, maximum permissible overflow probability and maximum allowable storage/retrieval (S/R) machine utilization, are used to compute the storage capacity. This model can be effectively used in the design phase of new AS/R systems.