Product Allocation Planning with Safety Compatibility Constraints in IoT-based Warehouse

Abstract

Abstract One of the most relevant topics in warehouse management system (WMS) is the security issue and concerns the optimal placement allocation of products with respect of product and human safety in a sustainable system. Knowing that differences often exist between virtual view of products placements in centralized WMS and the real situation in the facility due to unplanned movements resulting from human errors or products’ misplacements, we propose a reactive and compatibility constraint approach for product storage allocation. Our aim is to reduce the size of floating locations largely used in WMS and to avoid the inherent risks of hazardous accidents which can be generated by incompatibility between products and then to minimize the total logistic costs and to guarantee higher warehousing service levels in a safety monitored environment. This work proposes a multi-agent architecture for product allocation planning with compatibility constraints (PAP/CC), which uses a decision mechanism for product's placement, based on negotiations between agents associated to compatibility tests. This approach represents an improvement key for decentralized management of warehouses in a dynamic and reactive environment. Negotiations mechanisms relying on an Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure and multi agent systems are defined in order to solve security problem of product allocation operations. Industrial deployment of IoT platform represents an ideal solution for decentralized management and to support collaboration between products and shelves. A simulation case of the proposed interactions mechanisms is provided with the use of NetLogo environment which offers many advantages to control agents and to describe their interactions in a graphical environment.