A structured procedure for order pick system analysis and design

Due to numerous design and cost parameters combined with the rapid development of associated technologies, it is difficult to analyze manually the wide variety of design options for order pick systems (OPSs). It is, therefore, logical to look towards the use of computer-aided systems to help in evaluating the numerous alternatives of OPSs. This research first attempts to explore the nature of the complexity pertinent to OPS analysis and design by acquiring knowledge from previous research results as well as the valuable experience of human experts. The understanding of OPS complexity leads to the presentation of a general framework for OPS analysis and design, which includes a general structure and a conceptual design procedure for an OPS. The general structure for an OPS should be comprehensive enough to represent most OPSs and be flexible to accommodate the more sophisticated ones. The conceptual design procedure portrays the high-level interrelationships among the design issues. The general framework will serve as a starting point for specifying analysis and design procedures. By embedding the cognitive activities that occur between warehouse designers and warehouse operators, the conceptual design procedure will evolve into a cognitive design procedure for OPSs. As a methodological paradigm for representing the various analysis and design issues of OPSs, an "Engineering Workstation (EWS)" approach is adopted, which can be described as an intermediate approach between analytic systems and expert systems. An EWS would combine the available analytical tools of several functional areas of an OPS with the necessary expertise for specifying the overall OPS structure. The resulting system, an engineering workstation for order pick system analysis and design (OPS/EWS), would aid warehouse managers in determining the reasonable alternatives for OPS configurations by considering a variety of equipment types, operating strategies, and other design parameters.