Computer model and simulation of an automated warehouse

Gašper Stipanič (2013) Computer model and simulation of an automated warehouse. EngD thesis.

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Abstract

Building new or retrofitting existing industrial buildings presents a huge and potentially risky investment for any company. The investors wish to minimize the construction or upgrade costs and begin using the new facilities as soon as possible. A later correction of the flaws in the initial design is related to additional costs that the investors would like to evade. For this thesis we developed a computer model of a suggested upgrade of an automated warehouse. With the use of discrete-event simulation we observed the behaviour of the modeled system under different input parameters. The process of creating a warehouse model and the simulation was carried out with the SIMPROCESS software. The basics of queueing and serving theory were used and we assumed that the arrival times are distributed according to a Poisson distribution. For serving times, we assumed a normal distribution. The simulation itself was limited to the processes of receiving and shipping goods. The model’s parameters were set based on historical data that represent an annual number of receive or ship transactions and the average amount of processed material per transaction. Results indicate that the upgraded warehouse will be able to withstand the planned load. These results were obtained when the input parameters showed an adequately balanced system. We came across some bad warehouse performance when the load distribution difference between different parts of the warehouse was too high.

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