Mixed-Load Transportation Scheduling of Multiple Agents in a Warehouse Environment

In a floor warehouse environment, where many agents transport numbers of products iteratively, efficient product transportation is required for high productivity. In general, the following facts are recognized. (i) Three kinds of jobs exist: picking, replenishment and arrangement. (ii) Mixed-load transportation can decrease the completion time of vehicles. In many former methods, however, the above facts are not considered. We propose a design methodology using a dispatching rule and a local search method based on a simulated annealing algorithm. The rule is applied to obtain the initial solution and the local search method is adopted to obtain a semi-optimal solution in consideration of mixed-load transportation. To evaluate the applicability of the proposed algorithm, we have implemented the algorithm in several product environments. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

[1]  Chul E. Kim,et al.  Approximation Algorithms for Some Routing Problems , 1978, SIAM J. Comput..

[2]  Melanie Mitchell,et al.  An introduction to genetic algorithms , 1996 .

[3]  J. Gong.  Scheduling of order-picking with replenishment in a warehouse environment , 2008 .

[4]  Jun Ota,et al.  Motion planning of fork lift group in warehouse management - dynamical scheduling of arrangement work , 2003, IEEE International Conference on Robotics, Intelligent Systems and Signal Processing, 2003. Proceedings. 2003.

[5]  Jun Ota,et al.  Scheduling multiple agents for picking products in a warehouse , 2006, Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006..

[6]  J.-H. Ting.  Comparisons of single and mixed-model AGV systems , 1997 .

[7]  Martin W. P. Savelsbergh,et al.  The General Pickup and Delivery Problem , 1995, Transp. Sci..

[8]  Mauro Gamberi,et al.  Design of a class based storage picker to product order picking system , 2007 .

[9]  Kees Jan Roodbergen,et al.  Routing methods for warehouses with multiple cross aisles , 2001 .

[10]  Y. Roll,et al.  Random versus grouped storage policies and their effect on warehouse capacity , 1983 .

[11]  David Naso,et al.  Multicriteria meta-heuristics for AGV dispatching control based on computational intelligence , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B (Cybernetics).

[12]  Artiba,et al.  The Planning and Scheduling of Production Systems: Methodologies and applications , 2011 .

[13]  René M. B. M. de Koster,et al.  A review of design and control of automated guided vehicle systems , 2006, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[14]  S. E. Elmaghraby,et al.  The Planning and Scheduling of Production Systems , 1996 .

[15]  Fuh-Hwa Liu,et al.  Control Strategy for Dispatching Multi-load Automated Guided Vehicles in a Deadlock-Free Environment , 2002, J. Math. Model. Algorithms.

[16]  J. M. A. Tanchoco,et al.  AGV systems with multi-load carriers: Basic issues and potential benefits , 1997 .

[17]  Kees Jan Roodbergen,et al.  Layout and routing methods for warehouses , 2001 .

[18]  Charles G. Petersen,et al.  Improving order‐picking performance through the implementation of class‐based storage , 2004 .

[19]  Hans-Otto Günther,et al.  Dispatching multi-load AGVs in highly automated seaport container terminals , 2004, OR Spectr..

[20]  Randolph W. Hall,et al.  DISTANCE APPROXIMATIONS FOR ROUTING MANUAL PICKERS IN A WAREHOUSE , 1993 .

[21]  Gunter P. Sharp,et al.  Forward-reserve allocation in a warehouse with unit-load replenishments , 1998, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[22]  George O. Wesolowsky,et al.  LOCATING A NOXIOUS FACILITY WITH RESPECT TO SEVERAL POLYGONAL REGIONS USING ASYMMETRIC DISTANCES , 1993 .

[23]  A Ravindran.  Operations Research Methodologies , 2008 .

[24]  W. H. M. Zijm,et al.  Warehouse design and control: Framework and literature review , 2000, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[25]  Gilbert Laporte,et al.  Static pickup and delivery problems: a classification scheme and survey , 2007 .

[26]  Timothy S. Vaughan,et al.  The effect of warehouse cross aisles on order picking efficiency , 1999 .

[27]  Chul E. Kim,et al.  Approximation algorithms for some routing problems , 1976, 17th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (sfcs 1976).

[28]  Kees Jan Roodbergen,et al.  Design and control of warehouse order picking: A literature review , 2006, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[29]  Moosung Jae,et al.  A design for a tandem AGVS with multi-load AGVs , 2003 .

[30]  F. Glover,et al.  In Modern Heuristic Techniques for Combinatorial Problems , 1993 .

[31]  C. D. Gelatt,et al.  Optimization by Simulated Annealing , 1983, Science.

[32]  Li-Chen Fu,et al.  Lot Dispatching and Scheduling Integrating OHT Traffic Information in the 300mm Wafer Fab , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering.