Towards human-centric warehousing: the impact of rack configuration and cognitive demands on order picking performance
研究德国零售仓库中货架编号方向与拣货员书写习惯（左到右）的冲突，发现从左侧开始拣选比右侧快18.7%，表明认知因素影响仓储效率，对设计以人为本的仓储系统有参考价值。
Within warehouse logistics processes, design concepts and management decisions regarding operations systems determine the demands placed on human operators. While the literature proposes that human-centric work system design positively affects the operator, the impact on operator performance remains under-explored. We analyse the case of a German retail warehouse where the shelf numbering follows the pickers' walking direction from right to left. However, all human order pickers working in this system are familiar with a left-to-right writing system due to their schooling and training. Because cognitive psychology proposes that writing system direction impacts spatial orientation in goal-oriented visual search, we are motivated to explore the interplay of rack configuration and human cognitive demands. We ground our mixed-effects model on archival data, including 470,968 storage location visits. Our results indicate that order pickers work 18.7% faster when picking items starting from the left side of the shelf compared to starting their visual search from the right side. Our findings suggest that human search strategies in warehousing operations are influenced by attention templates like writing direction on a similar level as by system design elements of the warehouse itself. This insight underscores the potential for diversified future human-centric design approaches in warehouse logistics.