DESIGN OF A PARTS TO PICKER SYSTEM. DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS APLICATION AIDED BY DISCRETE EVENT SIMULATION.

Abstract

Introduction: Order picking is warehouse’ key activity due to its impact on operation costs and service level, and an appropriate design will affect directly global performance. This paper evaluates the repercussion that different picking operating strategies have in a Part to Picker system while working under diverse order’s types. Methods and materials: With this aim in mind, a Design of Experiment tool, based on the Define, Measure and Analyze phases of Six Sigma DMAIC approach, has been used. The experiments have been carried out basing on a simulation model that reproduces an automatic warehouse with a Miniload. Results: As a result of an analysis of variance ANOVA, the principal effects and interactions were identified.