Industrial & Systems Engineering

Abstract: The Department of Defense and the Joint Recruiting Facilities Committee oversee the operation and maintenance of recruiting facilities for the Service recruiting commands. DOD is concerned with identifying the most cost-effective geographic locations for the Services recruiting offices. This report provides an overview of the Recruiting Station Location Project undertaken for the Assistant Secretary of Defense (FMP), Office of Accession Policy.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The present study was funded by the Material Handling Industry of American (MHIA) and the College Industry Council on Material Handling Education (CICMHE) to address three themes and initiatives identified at the 2007 Material Handling Logistics Summit:(1) Theme 5: Industry and academia collaboration;(2) Theme 7: Worker-centric distribution center design as workplaces of excellence; and (3) Theme 9: Attracting, educating, recruiting, training, and retaining high-quality personnel.

Abstract: In a traditional unit-load warehouse, racks are arranged to create parallel picking aisles, perhaps with one or more orthogonal cross aisles to reduce travel distances for order pickers. We have argued that these designs are based on a number of unspoken assumptions, and that by relaxing them we can create warehouses with significantly improved performance. To illustrate, we have introduced warehouse designs with two innovations: diagonal cross aisles and picking aisles having different orientations.

Abstract We introduce and develop models for a physical goods storage system based on the 15-puzzle, a classic children's game in which 15 numbered tiles slide within a 4× 4 grid. The objective of the game is to arrange the tiles in numerical sequence, starting from a random arrangement. For our purposes, the tiles represent totes, pallets, or even containers that must be stored very densely, and the objective is to maneuver items to an input–output point for retrieval or processing.

Abstract In theory and in practice, the objective of warehouse design has long been to meet operational requirements of throughput and service performance at minimum cost. A natural product of this “bottom line” approach has been warehouse buildings and operations ill-suited to the humans who spend their working lives interacting with them. We offer an explanation for the current approach, and argue that a new approach—a new paradigm—is needed.

Abstract To meet the requirement of flexibility in intralogistics systems, the GridFlow 2D storage system has been developed which is able react to fluctuating processing volumes and layout changes. It consists of multiple autonomous conveyor modules, FlexConveyors, each equipped with a controller. The decentralized control can be described with a set of rules for the communication by message passing between the controllers of the FlexConveyors.

Abstract Operations in unit-load warehouses include single-command cycles and dual-command cycles, where storage and retrieval operations are interleaved. We model dual-command travel in two warehouse layouts that occur commonly in industry, and compare the efficiency of the two designs. General guidelines for optimizing the two aisle layouts are provided.