Warehouse Container Pre-Positioning for Future Order Scheduling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing warehousing systems face inefficiencies in managing future production orders, leading to suboptimal utilization of resources and increased transport times for movable carriers.
Innovation Solution
A warehousing system that includes movable carriers, a movable carrier parking area, workstations, and automatic transport devices, with a control device that anticipates future orders by determining and temporarily storing containers in designated sections, optimizing the allocation of resources and reducing transport times.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If containers are stored in movable carriers and transported to workstations on demand, then resource utilization is improved, but transport time increases for future orders
Solution Approach 1:
The control device identifies containers required for future orders in advance and determines their target workstations before the orders are actually executed. Containers are pre-positioned in movable carriers and transported to appropriate workstations ahead of time, so that when future orders arrive, the containers are already in place and no additional transport time is needed.
2Loss of time
If containers are pre-stored in temporary storage sections, then future order processing is accelerated, but workspace complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
A temporary storage section is introduced as an intermediary between the movable carrier and the workstation. This intermediate storage area allows containers to be pre-positioned and held ready for future orders without permanently complicating the workstation structure. The temporary storage section acts as a buffer that simplifies the overall system by providing a dedicated holding area.
3Productivity
If multiple containers are transported together on the same movable carrier, then transport efficiency is improved, but container handling complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments containers into different groups based on their destination workstations and order priorities. The control device determines which containers should be transported together on the same movable carrier by analyzing future orders and workstation requirements. This segmentation allows multiple containers to be transported efficiently together while maintaining manageable handling complexity through systematic grouping.
Data Source
AI summary
A warehousing system includes a plurality of movable carriers, at least one workstation, at least one automatic transport device and a control device. The control device is configured to: acquire a future order; determine a first hit container and a first hit carrier according to the future order; and determine a first hit container to be placed in a temporary storage section as a temporary storage container, and determine a workstation of the warehouse system to receive the temporary storage container as a temporary storage workstation. The automatic transport device is configured to transport at least one first hit carrier storing the temporary storage container to the temporary storage workstation. The temporary storage workstation includes a container handling device, and the container handling device is at least configured to transfer the temporary storage container on the at least one first hit carrier to the temporary storage section.