Storage Assignment using Nested Annealing and Hamming Distances

Johan Oxenstierna, Louis Janse van Rensburg, Peter J. Stuckey, Volker Krueger

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingPaper in conference proceedingpeer-review

Abstract

The assignment of products to storage locations significantly impacts the efficiency of warehouse operations. We propose a multi-phase optimizer for a Storage Location Assignment Problem (SLAP) where solution quality is based on a distance estimate of future-forecasted order picking. Candidate assignments are first sampled using a Markov Chain accept/reject method. Future-forecasted pick-rounds are then modified according to the candidate assignments and solved as Traveling Salesman Problems (TSP). The model is graph-based and generalizes to any obstacle layout in 2D. Due to the intractability of the SLAP, methods are proposed to speed up search for strong solution candidates. These include usage of fast function approximation to find potentially strong samples, as well as restarts from local minima. Results show that these methods improve performance and that total travel distance can be reduced by as much as 30% within 8 hours of CPU-time. We share a public repository with SLAP ins tances and corresponding benchmark results on the generalizable TSPLIB format.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems
PublisherSciTePress
Pages94-105
ISBN (Electronic)978-989-758-627-9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Event12th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems, ICORES 2023 - Lisbon, Portugal
Duration: 2023 Feb 192023 Feb 21

Conference

Conference12th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems, ICORES 2023
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityLisbon
Period2023/02/192023/02/21

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Transport Systems and Logistics

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