Designing Distribution Centers for the Service Economy

这项研究将在服务经济的背景下调查仓库和配送中心的设计和运营。这一领域的现有研究(和实践)基于许多设计假设，这些假设在尝试最小化成本时是合适的，但当人们将重点转移到最大化服务时，这些假设不再合适。这项研究集中在两个基本的调查领域。第一种方法是在取货区域内设计过道，以缩短订单响应时间。拟议的设计包括对角过道、不同方向的挑拣过道和不同宽度的过道。这些创新中的每一项都可以提高订单挑选系统的响应速度。第二个领域涉及在严重拥堵的系统中人工挑选订单的表现，这在为零售和直接面向消费者市场服务的组织中很常见。将这两个领域结合起来将导致配送中心的设计与目前存在的明显不同。随着美国经济从制造基地转向服务和海外制造产品的分销，配送中心将成为一种“21世纪的工厂”。据估计，仅在北美就有50多万个配送中心，而且每个月都在增加。这项研究产生的发现和创新将帮助从业者设计更具生产力和响应性的设施，这些设施从一开始就被设计来满足服务经济的苛刻客户。

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.