Conceptual Warehouse Design Algorithm Using a Network Flow Model

Currently, third-party logistics (3PL) services are growing rapidly. In the current business climate, the goal of each 3PL firm is to reduce the time required for warehouse design. In this paper, a warehouse design problem is discussed. The problem is to determine the number of machines used in a warehouse and the product flow among the devices. In the conventional design process, such a problem would be solved with experimental and intuitional approaches. However, conventional approaches require large amounts of time. In addition, the design outcome is dependent on the skill of the designer. In order to provide theoretical guidelines for the design itself and shorten the design process, we propose a new design method using an extended network flow model. The network flows are expressed as the combination of the flow in the preparation time and that in the lead time. The mathematical model is constructed and solved as a threshold optimization algorithm including the mixed integer linear programming problem. We then evaluated the feasibility of the proposed model and method using real data, and confirmed the effect of the proposed method with regard to time reduction and the obtained design results. (c) Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and The Robotics Society of Japan, 2009