Optimization And Simulation Of Order Picking In Distribution Center Of Company A

With the development of e-commerce,customer orders gradually follow the trend of diversification,small batch and multi-frequency.At the same time,due to the stiff market competition,higher delivery rate is put forward by the customers,making it more difficult to pick for the distribution center.As an important part of the order process,picking operation efficiency is a key segment to measure the overall efficiency of the distribution center.In order to improve the efficiency of order picking system,this paper takes company A's distribution center as the research object,conducts quantification and optimization on its order picking steps.Based on the existing batch system of Company A,the paper establishes two order batch models for the Company A.Then we will input the actual batch data and the results of the two order batch models into Flex Sim,simulating the overall Ex-warehouse efficiency to choose a better picking mode.The specific research contents are as the following aspects:(1)Comb the company A's existing picking system and the logic of order consolidation,use Flex Sim to analysis the existing order batch delivery efficiency and existing problems in the distribution center;(2)Based on the principle on orders wheher it can be split,the paper establishes the order non-splited model and the splited model which is based on channel similarity and model based on VRP.The non-splited model is solved by the greedy algorithm,while the order splited model is solved by the two heuristic algorithms: scanning method and simple distance method.Finally,the modelis will be realized by the code of the algorithm above in the Matlab;(3)The result of the non-splited and the splited model(2 groups)amouting to 3 groups will be used as the input of Flex Sim simulation,simulating the whole process of picking and splitting under 2 patterns: the manual sorting and automatic sorting.Then,compare with the existing batch Ex-warehouse efficiency of company to find out the more efficient order-batch mode in the two separate sorting modes.The simulation results show that the order batch model established in this paper reduces the total distance of picking in some way,and improves the Ex-warehouse efficiency of the distribution center in the company A.The thought of the batch optimization on the order in this paper can also be applied to the Ex-warehouse of other distribution center orders to improve its operational efficiency and service levels,reduce operation costs and time.It makes sense in theory and reality.