LAUSR

Abstract In many industrial environments, picking operations are performed with tow trains in order to efficiently feed a production or an assembly system. This operation is often time-consuming, especially for the automotive environment, which employs the supermarket concept very often to manage thousands of different parts. This research aims at improving the picking operations by optimizing the storage assignment of the references in a supermarket. This is a process in which the references are placed in specific racks of the warehouse. A linear programming formulation is provided so that the picking operations can be performed in the minimum amount of time. The model considers some constraints linked to the specific kind of equipment used in a warehouse, and the ergonomic energy expenditure. This approach has been implemented in a numerical case inspired by a real industrial application.