Robotic mobile fulfillment systems (RMFS): a simulative study with three different managements

In the last years, especially with the corona-virus pandemic, the e-commerce had increased such as never before. Analyzing the e-commerce orders, we can assert that they are generally small in batch and with strong domand’s variability, while the e-commerce warehouses are large in quantity and the customer wish a very short delivery time and low prices. For all this reason, order fulfillment can be quiet challenging for warehouses and for the logistics we are used to. This paper has such as primary objective to analyze the RMFSs with different managements where it changes the warehouse store policy. In particular, it analyze two different layouts with two different kind of pod: multiproduct pods, where it is stored a various type of items, without special assignment, mono-product pods, where it is possible to store only one kind of items, and with these pods we analyze two different layout: a random layout where the pods are stocking in a random position and an class-based policy location where the pods have a precise place decide in according with his class contents. After a brief introduction part about warehouse system, with a special focus on picking operations, it descripts the RMFSs, the general simulation methodology we study the three methodology described previously for understanding the performance and the best solutions.