On the Order Picking Policies in Warehouses: Algorithms and their Behavior

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship among different routing policies for order picking and the features of the problem (describing both warehouse layout and orders), the results obtained by simulation show that some policies are especially sensitive to the presence of certain conditions that are likely to be present in real-world cases. Moreover, the routing policies are represented—for the first time in the literature as far as our knowledge—on structured algorithms. This contribution can facilitate their implementation because the features of the policies are modeled by formal mathematical structures, laying the foundations to standardize the way they operate.