Intentional fragmentation for material storage

A novel technique (location-relaxed storage) of mixing products within warehouse storage bins is presented and evaluated. Analyses of warehouse operations, storage space efficiency, error sensitivity, and placement policies are presented and compared to traditional warehousing techniques. The major factors that drive the performance differences between traditional, highly organized storage and location-relaxed storage are shown to include the number of unique stock keeping units (SKUs) served by the warehouse and the picking lot size characteristic of demand. The analyses demonstrate traditional storage techniques have greater difficulty dealing with a large SKU base. Furthermore, location-relaxed storage is shown to have a lower sensitivity to operation errors and a greater opportunity for cost savings through optimization opportunities. Finally, a new placement strategy especially suited for location-relaxed storage is presented. As the popularity of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) increases and the technical issues of widespread RFID implementation are addressed, new applications of RFID technology will change the way the world operates. An ongoing, industry-wide effort to implement RF-tags throughout the material goods supply chain has the support of manufacturers, retailers, and technology companies. RFID in the supply chain represents an enabling technology that will allow warehouse operations to break away from traditional methodologies and adopt revolutionary techniques, such as location-relaxed storage.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Ho, Stephen, 1974-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sanjay E. Sarma.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/27099

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/27099