Industrial Logistics Systems Design: A Conceptual and Computational Foundation

这个研究项目将审查专家在设计工业设施，特别是仓库时的工作。研究的四个阶段是：观察工作中的专家，收集他们的工作过程和工作产品的数据；分析收集到的数据，建立设计过程模型和设计决策；通过专家小组评估模型和设计；开发、实例化和评估计算体系结构和工具，以支持设计决策制定。研究方法结合了民族志研究、运筹学和分布式决策的信息技术的方法和工具。这项研究的成功完成将提供专家实践的仓库设计过程的正式表示，基于正式表示的计算体系结构，以及体系结构中计算工具的示例。该研究将通过为仓库设计决策带来一致的、可重复的原则来改进仓库设计的实践，从而使商业上可行的计算工具的开发成为可能。这项研究将通过开发一个连贯的、正式的过程模型以及工业案例数据来改善教学。该研究将通过为解决特定仓库设计决策优化的特定研究提供平台来影响未来的研究。

This research project will examine the work of experts as they design industrial facilities, specifically warehouses. The four phases of the research are: observing experts at work and collecting data on their work process and work product; analyzing collected data to develop models of the design process and design decision making; evaluating models and designs through panels of experts; and developing, instantiating, and evaluating a computational architecture and tools to support design decision making. The research approach combines the methods and tools of ethnographic studies, operations research, and information technology for distributed decision making.The successful completion of this research will provide a formal representation of the warehouse design process as practiced by experts, a computational architecture based on the formal representation, and examples of computational tools within the architecture. The research will improve the practice of warehouse design by bringing a consistent, repeatable discipline to warehouse design decision making, thereby enabling the development of commercially viable computational tools. The research will improve teaching by developing a coherent, formal process model, along with industrial case data. The research will impact future research by providing a platform for specific research addressing the optimization of specific warehouse design decisions.