Design problems in automated warehousing

What are the common problems that arise in designing an automated warehouse? What solution and analysis techniques are appropriate for addressing these problems? The objective of this paper is to help provide answers to these two questions. In doing so, emphasis will be placed on describing the design problems. The problems will be classified as physical configuration design problems and operations strategy design problems. The problems will be described generically and then in detail in the context of miniload automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) design The miniload ASRS was selected primarily because the problems faced in designing a miniload ASRS are common to most automated warehousing design efforts.