The order picking process involves a series of activities in response to customer needs, such as the selection or programming of orders (batches), and the selection of different items from their storage location to shipment. These activities are accomplished by a routing policy that determines the picker sequence for retrieving the items from the storage location. Therefore, the order picking problem has been plenty investigated; however, in previous research, the proposed models were based on demand fulfilling, putting aside factors such as the product weight—which is an important criterion—at the time of establishing routes. In this article, a mathematical model is proposed; it takes into account the product’s weight derived from a case study. This model is relevant, as no similar work was found in the literature that improves the order picking by making simultaneous decisions on the storage location assignment and the picker-routing problem, considering precedence constraints based on the product weight and the characteristics of the case study, as the only location for each product in a warehouse with a general layout.
Purpose
The paper consists of a literature review about the green supply chain management (GSCM), a concept which has been gaining ground around the organizations worldwide. The traditional supply chain (SC) was forced to evolve in GSCM as an option for companies to improve their economical, operational and environmental performance. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how green practices (GP) have a powerful dependence to the SC execution from companies around the world. A GP can be briefly defined as the actions being consciously done being responsible to the environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is exploratory. The topic was delimited through a review of similar papers, analyzing the different type of tools and the GP considered in each paper. For last, a conclusion will be exposed.
Findings
The “green movement” within the SC is increasing fast around the world, since the increasing awareness of industrialized countries are recurring in practices that impact directly to the environment. Therefore, costs of extra energy consumption are generated, as well as the imminent worrying reputation among customers due to the lack of responsibility to the environment.
Research limitations/implications
The document only covers the topic from a theoretical aspect through a literature review.
Originality/value
This paper covers not only strategies related to GSCM and GP from European and Asian countries are approached, but also Latin American performance, exposing briefly the adoption of GSCM.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.