Waterfall mechanism and three-stage implementation model for interconnected dangerous goods warehouse operations

Abstract

In elevating the efficiency and practicality of warehouse operations, our team proposes the concept of interconnected dangerous goods warehouses. To support the operations of this kind of warehouse, this original study addresses three factors that affect the operations of such warehouses, namely the distance traveled by the forklift (cost factors), the similarity between the distances operated by the forklifts (efficiency factors), and the distance between each stack of goods in the warehouse (safety factors). In considering safety factors and improving the operational efficiency of stocking in or out of dangerous goods, this study proposes a waterfall mechanism for warehouse operations. The main characteristic of this study is a three-stage model to integrate key factors influencing the operations of dangerous goods stocking in or out warehouse. Thereafter, an example is given to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed waterfall mechanism and the three-stage model.

KEYWORDS:

• Interconnected warehouse
• dangerous goods
• route optimization
• waterfall mechanism
• discrete particle swarm optimization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported in part by the project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [number 51508319], the research programme of the National Special Authorized Social Science Fund of China [number 07@ZH005], the key project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [number 51338003] and the Nature and Science Fund from Zhejiang Province Ministry of Education [number Y201327642].