Storage Location Assignment Problem: implementation in a warehouse design optimization tool

This paper focuses on possible improvements of common practices of warehouse storage management taking cue from Operations Research SLAP (Storage Location Assignment Problem), thus aiming to reach an efficient and organized allocation of products to the warehouse slots. The implementation of a SLAP approach in a tool able to model multiple storage policies will be discussed, with the aim both to reduce the overall required warehouse space - to efficiently allocate produced goods - and to minimize the internal material handling times. The overcome of some of the limits of existing warehousing information management systems modules will be shown, sketching the design of a software tool able to return an organized slot-product allocation. The results of the validation of a prototype on an industrial case are presented, showing the efficiency increase of using the proposed approach with dedicated slot storage policy adoption.