Finding a Needle in a Haystack: The Effects of Searching and Learning on Pick-Worker Performance
研究了混沌存储系统中搜索任务对拣货时间的影响，发现搜索难度增加会使时间上升16%，但经验可缓解；结合距离、密度和经验优化任务分配可提升约5%的生产率。
The rise in online and multichannel retailing has pushed retailers to give increased attention to their order-fulfillment operations. We study “chaotic storage” fulfillment systems in which dissimilar items are stored together in a single location. This necessitates a searching task as part of the picking process, which has not been previously studied. We show that pick times increase by as much as 16% as the searching task becomes more difficult. However, the deleterious effect of searching decreases with pick-worker experience. Using simulation, we show that pick times can be improved by incorporating distance, bin density, and picker experience into pick assignments and pick routing. Through properly combining the details of the task and the workers, order-fulfillment productivity can be increased by approximately 5%. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.