Variable Neighborhood Search strategies for the Order Batching Problem Articles uri icon

authors

  • MENENDEZ, SODA
  • PARDO, EDUARDO G.
  • ALONSO AYUSO, ANTONIO
  • MOLINA FERRAGUT, ELISENDA
  • DUARTE, ABRAHAM

publication date

  • February 2017

start page

  • 500

end page

  • 512

volume

  • 78

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0305-0548

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1873-765X

abstract

  • The Order Batching Problem is an optimization problem belonging to the operational management aspect of a warehouse. It consists of grouping the orders received in a warehouse (each order is composed by a list of items to be collected) in a set of batches in such a way that the time needed to collect all the orders is minimized. Each batch has to be collected by a single picker without exceeding a capacity limit. In this paper we propose several strategies based on the Variable Neighborhood Search methodology to tackle the problem. Our approach outperforms, in terms of quality and computing time, previous attempts in the state of the art. These results are confirmed by non-parametric statistical tests. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

keywords

  • order batching problem; picking process; variable neighborhood search; cross-aisles; warehouse; picking; heuristics; algorithms; distance