A high proportion of manual activities in warehouses as well as high inhomogeneity of the employees’ individual performance cause strong fluctuations of economic target values in manual order picking.
At the same time, manual activities bear a high risk of musculoskeletal diseases, caused by the physical strain connected with those activities. An unsystematic placement of orders without taking into account these strains, increases the risk of those diseases.
Against the background of demographic change, it is important to consider the skills and abilities of individual order pickers. Different performance capabilities can be taken into account by the use of a stress optimized order placement in manual order picking. Warehouse layout, storage location-allocation and technical equipment are used as input for simulation studies. The data enable a comparison of selected order placement heuristics.
Therefore, the goal of the project is to develop an instrument for the capability-based order assignment for manual order picking activities. The competitive picking performance shall be maintained so that no economic disadvantages arise. Furthermore, the prevention of musculo-skeletal disorders shall be taken into account, while considering the individual performance potential.
The project is carried out in cooperation with the Institute of Labour Studies (IAD). The IAD supports the project with its know-how in the fields of production, logistics, and product ergonomics as well as many years of experience in job evaluation and workplace design.
The use case and framework conditions are very close to reality, resulting in a high practical relevance. Consequently, the cooperation with companies is indispensable. In business perspective, the results focus on the health benefits of the workforce, the increase of planning reliability of processes and the reduction of employee costs.
Key Data:
Duration: May 2020 to September 2021
Funding: This project (HA project no.: 855/20-12) is funded by the State of Hesse and the HOLM grant as part of the initiative “Innovations in Logistics and Mobility” of the Hessian Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Housing.
Project lead: Julia Wenzel
AufKomm – Capability based order assignment in manual order picking
- Modeling approach: Agent-based
- Performance criterion: A picker's individual risk score to assess the feasibility of a picker order allocation method based on the picker's skill set
Click here for further project information.
