Decision support optimisation models for design of sustainable automated warehouses

Abstract

A new decision support tool for design of automated storage and retrieval systems is proposed. With the aim of promoting sustainable solutions, both economical and environmental perspectives are taken into account by two separated models, that can so properly been used to identify effective compromises or to consider different objectives of involved stakeholders. In order to reduce the gap between design practice, market component availability and existing mathematical models, the presented tool relies on a more realistic description of the rack structure in terms of bay configurations and components. Moreover, for the first time energy consumption for crane movements is introduced, with related impacts on costs and carbon dioxide emissions. Constraint programming is adopted in order to manage non-linear objective as well as constraints functions.