A comparison of nearest distance optimization and ant colony optimization for order picking in a multi-aisle warehouse

Abstract

Today, warehouses and the IT infrastructure behind them ensure smooth processing of customer orders throughout the day in all supply chains. These orders can consist of one item up to hundreds of items. The size and heterogeneity of warehouses also impedes the fastest possible processing of all orders. This research compares the nearest distance optimization heuristic and ant colony optimization to find out whether one or the other route leads to faster picking times in several scenarios depending on the warehouse size or the number of items on the picking list. For this purpose, we chose the widespread multi-aisle layout of a warehouse for our study assuming that only one human worker is involved in picking the items on the list.