Assembly kits with variable part physical attributes: warehouse layout design and assignment procedure

Abstract

Purpose The kitting feeding policy creates kits with the parts of each product to assemble. Each kit contains elements with heterogeneous physical properties imposing heterogeneous logistic facilities and management solutions for storage and handling. The purpose of this paper is to present and apply a two-step procedure to design the part warehouse layout and to assign locations in case of kitting with high-variety part attributes. The proposed procedure aims at reducing the kitting travelled distance, shortening the picker paths, best positioning the components in the warehouse to enhance the possibility of creating kits through a single corridor access. The saturation of the warehouse and the minimization of the required storage space are also considered. Design/methodology/approach Starting from part categorization, the proposed two-step procedure, of general applicability, designs the component warehouse, sizing the corridors (Step 1) before clustering the kits in terms of part commonality and best-assigning clusters to corridors (Step 2) with the goal of reducing the travelled distance and saturating the available storage space. Findings A comparison model considers the traditional versus the proposed warehouse layout highlighting the potential saving in the picker travelled distance. A case study taken from the harvesting machine agricultural sector exemplifies the applicability and the practical implications of this research. Originality/value Elements of originality are the warehouse design strategy and the assignment model for parts based on their physical attributes and their occurrence in the assembly kits. Finally, the case study taken from industry, with a high number of components and part categories, adds value to the research making the proposed procedure able to address large-scale industrial problems.

Current studies on storage location assignment problem

“…Based on the experiments' results, diagonal stacking gave the best solution for this problem (Guerra-Olivares et al, 2018). Bortolini et al (2020) aimed to minimise travel distance and required storage space with a twostep procedure. This research is inspired by harvesting machines from the agricultural sector (Bortolini et al, 2020).…”

“…Bortolini et al (2020) aimed to minimise travel distance and required storage space with a twostep procedure. This research is inspired by harvesting machines from the agricultural sector (Bortolini et al, 2020). Van Gils et al (2019) studies are inspired by a real-life business-to-business spare parts warehouse.…”

Iterated-local-search-based chaotic differential evolution algorithm for hybrid-load part feeding scheduling optimization in mixed-model assembly lines

“…In order to minimize the rate of early or delayed delivery and the carrying cost in the process, Chen and Wilhelm (1993) adopted a new heuristic algorithm to strengthen the flow control of time management and improve the cost-effectiveness of kitting supply strategy. Bortolini et al (2020) developed a two-phase program to design the layout of the parts warehouse under the kitting supply strategy by the attributes of various parts. Finally, the assembly efficiency was increased by 10-15%, and the inventory level of parts in the warehouse was reduced by about 45% compared to before the improvement.…”

Research on kitting evaluation method of complex electromechanical products

“…Compared with the traditional online method, the strategy based on full set of parts consumes less labor-intensive. Bortolini et al [8] proposed a "two-stage" method to solve the problem of material storage and layout under a complete set of material strategy. Based on the results of component commonality clustering analysis and cluster allocation, the size of storage locations and layout methods are determined to reduce the transportation distance of complete sets of materials, making the storage and layout mode under a complete set of material strategies more reasonable and effective.…”