Simulation-based design evaluation of unit load automated storage/retrieval systems

The focus of this paper is unit load automated storage/retrieval (AS/R) systems. Two of the more important factors affecting the design of AS/R systems are system configuration and policies used for storing and retrieving items to and from the warehouse. Simulation results are obtained for six different single-dock layouts using three different scheduling policies. The results are compared using system throughput as the primary criterion; other performance measures investigated are storage and retrieval waiting times, and rejects due to the rack or input/output queues being fully utilized.