Application of the Generalised Distance Measure to Location Selection During Order-Picking

When a shared storage system is used, the selection of locations from which products should be picked becomes a significant decision problem. Every storage location can be described using several criteria, such as: storage time, distance from the I/O point, degree of demand satisfaction, the number of other products to be picked near the analysed location, or others. Based on such criteria, a synthetic variable can be created to rank all these locations; the highest-ranking one is selected. Such a ranking is created using the Generalised Distance Measure (GDM); the selected locations and the picker’s route based on them are compared to the results obtained using the Taxonomic Measure of Location’s Attractiveness (TMAL). Both route length and picking time are compared. Also, the influence of the system of criteria weights within each method on the route length and the picking time is analysed using simulation methods.