An on-line tutor for warehouse design

Even though the methodologies for warehouse design are taught in traditional industrial engineering programs, students often find it difficult to develop the skills necessary to complete actual designs. The difficulty in translating the textbook knowledge of using the analytical and mathematical tools for design stem from their lack of experience in using such tools for designing warehouses of reasonable levels of fidelity compared to real systems. It is often very difficult to incorporate large datasets and the computational algorithms necessary during the different phases of warehouse design into the course material. As part of a larger research effort to develop a comprehensive collection of online teaching materials integrated into the undergraduate and graduate curricula, we have developed a warehouse design tutor in which additional functionality is constantly being added. Certain key details of the tutor are discussed in this paper.