The impacts of acceleration/deceleration on travel time models for carousel systems

Carousel systems become increasingly popular in industries on account of their efficiency and relatively low cost. All the research papers dealing with travel time models of carousel system assumed average uniform velocity for the carousel body movement, disregarding the acceleration/deceleration rate. Consequently, the optimal design and operating policies proposed in the literature are far from optimum, from the practical point of view. With a continuous approximation to the discrete rack face, we develop travel time models by considering the speed profiles of the carousel body movement. Under the randomized assignment policy, the expected travel times are found for a single and dual command cycle. The accuracy of the proposed models is verified by comparison with the results obtained directly from discrete racks.