Practical factors in order picking planning: state-of-the-art classification and review

Abstract

Market trends such as globalisation, increasing customer expectations, expensive industrial land and high labour costs cause a need for efficient order picking systems in practice. However, managers often do not implement findings from academic research on order picking planning into practice because researchers hardly account for practical factors (e.g. high-level storage, human factors, pick vehicle properties) or make unrealistic assumptions in their solution algorithms. A state-of-the-art review of the scientific literature on order picking planning (1) identifies and classifies highly influential practical factors, (2) shows the impact of these practical factors on order picking performance, and (3) illustrates how existing order picking planning models should be elaborated to account for practical factors. This study contributes to close the gap between research and practice by guiding future researchers to further increase the practical applicability of their research results.

Keywords:

• Order picking methods
• literature review
• logistics
• practical factors
• warehouse design

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

All data is included as online attachment to the paper.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Hasselt University and the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) (scientific research community (FWO-WOG) W001321N).

Notes on contributors

Sarah Vanheusden

Sarah Vanheusden obtained her PhD in November 2020 at the Hasselt University (Belgium), focusing on the integration of factors from practice in planning problems for manual order picking. Her research interests include the application of Operations Research (OR) techniques in the field of operations management and logistics, with a focus on warehouse operations.

Teun van Gils

Teun van Gils obtained his PhD in March 2019 at Hasselt University (Belgium), focusing on designing efficient order picking systems by combining planning problems. Recent publications of this author in, among others, International Journal of Production Research, European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Economics, and Transportation Research Part E show the importance and relevance of his research. His research interests include the application of Operations Research (OR) techniques in the field of warehouse management, with a strong focus on simulation and heuristic optimisation techniques.

Katrien Ramaekers

Katrien Ramaekers is associate professor in Operations Management and Logistics at the Faculty of Business Economics (BEW) of Hasselt University. She obtained her PhD in Applied Economics in 2007 at Hasselt University. In her PhD she developed a simulation optimisation framework for inventory management decision support based on incomplete information. Her research interest goes to the application of Operations Research techniques in the field of operations management and logistics, with a focus on warehousing and health care logistics.

Trijntje Cornelissens

Trijntje Cornelissens is a professor at the Engineering Management research group of the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Antwerp. With a background in theoretical physics and computer science, she has been modelling and solving combinatorial planning problems for industrial companies for several years. In 2012, she returned to academia, with a focus on operations and supply chain management. Special research interests are plant design and warehouse management.

An Caris

An Caris is professor at the research group Logistics (LOG) in the Faculty of Business Economics of Hasselt University. She wrote her doctoral thesis in 2010 on the topic ‘Simulation and Optimisation of Intermodal Barge Transport networks’. After being a postdoctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), she was appointed at Hasselt University in 2012. She is passionate about synchromodal transport and the physical internet, warehouse operations, health care logistics and humanitarian logistics.