Decision Support Research in Warehousing and Distribution: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The increase in e-commerce and omnichannel commerce is having a significant impact on the supply chain sector and its warehouses. Fluctuations in demand and priorities, the requirement for value-added service, government regulations and other factors put pressure on the operational decision makers on the warehouse floor and the systems that support them. The increasing complexity of daily warehouse operations means that decision support systems will need to become more sophisticated and intelligent to assist decision makers in real-time. The aim of this literature review is to investigate how decision support in warehousing and distribution operations is examined in the research literature. The objective of this review is to understand how this decision support research can assist operational decision makers to manage and complete the daily volume of work through the warehouse. Fifty-one articles were obtained by the literature search. Articles were categorized by type of warehouse, decision support target, operational task and problem type, research article methodology, architecture and technology. Decision support is examined in almost all areas of warehousing operations with the use of a variety of methods and technologies within the research literature. Most “daily warehouse operational” decision support deals with expertise transfer and reacting to real-time events. This paper highlights the lack of research into human–machine collaboration in adaptive decision support systems to assist warehouse operational decision makers.

Integrated Optimization of Order Allocation and Last-Mile Multi-Temperature Joint Distribution for Fresh Agriproduct Community Retail

“…Constraint (5) represents the loading quantity limit of vehicle s in terms of temperature requirements. Constraint (6) indicates incompatibility between multiple categories. If categories p and p are inconsistent in terms of temperature requirements, λ pp = 1, and the items should be loaded in different temperature zones.…”

“…(3) A mixed genetic algorithm (MGA) is proposed to solve the joint optimization model, for which purpose MGA has better performance and efficiency than other solvers. The most relevant literature concerns the cold-chain logistics of fresh agriproduct [2], the path optimization of MTJD [3], the splitting and merging of orders [4], and warehousing and distribution integration [5,6]. In general, prior studies have looked at the actual influencing variables of the distribution process from various angles, to reduce the time requirements and cost of the e-commerce distribution process.…”

Techno-economic analysis of using RFID to reduce errors in supply chains: A simulation approach

“…The discrepancy between the actual inventory and information system inventory could be due to errors which the effect of some of them are temporary and the others are permanent [5], [6]. Since these errors affect inventory management decisions such as stock replenishment, inventory cost allocation and service level adjustment; corporate executives are constantly searching for ways to remove them [7], [8]. Inaccurate inventory causes the information flow of supply chains to be misleading.…”

Planning the Process of Warehouse Object Use Based on Parameter Sweep Computations

“…Повышение эффективности их использования является насущной проблемой любого современного склада. Необходимость оптимизации использования складских объектов возникает как на стадии проектирования складов, так и в процессе их эксплуатации [1].…”