Design of an innovative picking system for AVS/RS warehouses through discrete event simulation

Increasing need for a solution of complex activities performed in warehouses are playing the core role for their transformation. In recent years, due to high volume of available technologies and advancement in information management systems, businesses are switching to automated warehouses with higher efficiencies in order fulfillment time and quality, with extra consciousness on energy consumption. One of such technologies was developed by an Italian company Eurofork that was built by merging a shuttle, a satellite and a robotic picking arm into an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV). The technology is considered to be a main tool to design an automated warehouse of AVS/RS type. This study further extends the previously conducted research and the simulation model, in the Discrete Event Simulation environment using a special software, with its novelty in integrating real life transaction history from an Italian manufacturer, to discuss performance indicators in single command activities in a conceptual warehouse. For the simulation to be performed in a desired level, external variable parameters and important output KPIs have been defined, with an aim of testing them in various storage policies. In the next step, performance indicators then were derived from the simulation software to data analysis tools, to analyze under which circumstances, which of the storage policies had higher throughput, shorter cycle time and most importantly, provided better energy efficient results.