A novel approach for modeling order picking paths
引入可见性图来估计仓库中订单拣选员的行走路线长度，发现比传统通道中心法估算的距离平均短10-20%，并影响最佳仓库布局的选择。
Abstract We introduce the visibility graph as an alternative way to estimate the length of a route traveled by order pickers in a warehouse. Heretofore it has been assumed that workers travel along a network of travel paths corresponding to centers of aisles, including along the right angles formed where picking aisles join cross aisles. A visibility graph forms travel paths that correspond to more direct and, we believe, more appropriate “travel by sight.” We compare distance estimations of the visibility graph and the aisle‐centers method analytically for a common traditional warehouse design. We conduct a range of computational experiments for both traditional and fishbone warehouse layouts to assess the impact of this change in distance metric. Distance estimations using aisle‐centers calculates a length of a picking tour on average 10–20% longer compared to distance estimations based on the visibility graph. The visibility graph metric also has implications for warehouse design: when comparing three traditional layouts, the distance model using a visibility graph resulted in choosing a different best layout in 13.3% of the cases.