Designing Distribution Centers for the Service Economy

本研究将探讨在服务经济的背景下，仓库和配送中心的设计和运作。 这一领域的现有研究（和实践）是基于一些设计假设，这些假设在试图最大限度地降低成本时是合适的，但当人们将重点转移到最大限度地提高服务时，这些假设就不再合适了。 这项研究集中在两个基本的调查领域。 第一个涉及到在一个订单拣选区的过道设计，以减少订单响应时间。 建议的设计包括对角过道，采摘过道与不同的方向，过道与不同的宽度。 这些创新中的每一个都可以被证明可以提高订单拣选系统的响应能力。 第二个领域涉及到在严重拥挤的系统中人工拣选订单的性能，这在服务于零售和直接面向消费者市场的组织中很常见。S.随着经济从制造业基地向服务业和海外产品分销转移，分销中心将成为“世纪的工厂”。“据估计，仅在北美就已经有50多万个配送中心，而且每个月都在增加。 这项研究所产生的发现和创新将帮助从业者设计更高效和响应性更强的设施，这些设施从一开始就旨在满足服务经济中苛刻的客户。

This research will investigate the design and operation of warehouses and distribution centers in the context of a service economy. Existing research(and practice) in this area is based on a number of design assumptions that are appropriate when attempting to minimize costs, but when one shifts the focus to maximizing service, these assumptions are no longer appropriate. This research focuses on two fundamental areas of inquiry. The first involves the design of aisles within an order picking area to reduce order response time. Proposed designs incorporate diagonal aisles, picking aisles with different orientations, and aisles with different widths. Each of these innovations can be shown to improve the responsiveness of an order picking system. The second area involves the performance of manual order picking in heavily congested systems, which are common with organizations that serve retail and direct-to-consumer markets.Integrating these two areas will lead to distribution center designs that are visibly different than those that exist today.As the U. S. economy shifts away from its manufacturing base, toward services and the distribution of products manufactured overseas, distribution centers will become a sort of "factory of the 21st century." By some estimates, there are already more than 500,000 distribution centers in North America alone, and more are added every month. Discoveries and innovations produced by this research will help practitioners design more productive and responsive facilities, which are designed from the start to satisfy the demanding customers of the service economy.