A Study of Vehicle Operation Policy in Warehouse

창고에서의 이송장비 운영정책에 관한 연구

Controlling industrial vehicle operated by human in warehouse was not simple since the information transfer for controlling the vehicle was not easy. However, as the technology for the WMS (Warehouse Management System) has been advanced and the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) has come into wide use in a workplace, the control of man-operated vehicle became less difficult as do to AGVS (Automated Guided Vehicle System). This study examines the ways to improve the efficiency of warehouse operation through introducing rule of task assignment for the vehicles, particularly forklift. This study, basically, refer to AGV operation policy because a great number of studies for AGV dispatching rule have been done and the mechanism for the controlling vehicles is very similar. The workers in field prefer to simple dispatching rules such as Shortest Retrieval Time First (SRTF), Shortest Travel Time First (STTF), and Longest Waiting Time First (LWTF). However, these rules have potential disadvantage. Thus, several rules made up by combining rules mentioned above are introduced and these new rules use threshold value or evaluation formula. The effectiveness of these new rules are tested by simulation and the results are compared. This study proposes favorable dispatching rules for forklift in warehouse for the efficiency of the vehicle operation and stability of service level.