Adaptive storage location assignment in a heterogeneous fleet unit-load warehouse : a discrete event simulation study

Green Valley Cocoa Logistics (GVCL) is opening a new warehouse to store the palletised cocoa products of Client X. This thesis provides GVCL with a new adaptive storage assignment policy to efficiently and effectively use their Automated Guided Vehicle fleet in combination with manual operators to handle the material handling in very narrow aisles. Context analysis and a literature study are used to formulate a two-stage approach which considers the daily state of each aisle in stage 1, and product information in stage 2. A discrete event simulation study was performed to compare the performance of the proposed policy against a baseline policy. Finally, the relevant key performance indicators are compared in an analytic hierarchy process.