Order picking in an automatic warehouse: Solving online asymmetric travelling salesman problems

Order picking in an automatic warehouse: Solving online asymmetric travelling salesman problems

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Article ID: iaor20002189
Country: Germany
Volume: 49
Issue: 3
Start Page Number: 501
End Page Number: 515
Publication Date: Jan 1999
Journal: Mathematical Methods of Operations Research (Heidelberg)
Authors: , ,
Keywords: programming: travelling salesman
Abstract:

We report on a joint project with industry that had the aim to sequence transportation requests within an automatic storage system in such a way that the overall travel time is minimized. The manufacturing environment is such that scheduling decisions have to be made before all jobs are known. We have modeled this task as an online Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem (ATSP). Several heuristics for the online ATSP are compared computationally within a simulation environment to judge which should be used in practice. Compared to the priority rule used so far, the optimization package reduced the unloaded travel time by about 40%. Because of these significant savings our procedure was implemented as part of the control software for the stacker cranes of the storage systems.

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