The Application of Dynamic Programming Method in Finding Shortest Path for Order Picker with Limited Picking Capacity

Companies are looking forward to improve their productivity within their warehouse operations and distribution centres. In a typical warehouse operation, order picking contributes more than half percentage of the operating costs. Order picking is a benchmark in measuring the performance and productivity improvement of any warehouse management. Smooth and fast order picking can help to reduce waiting time at the customers end and may increase customers’ satisfaction. Hence, it is crucial to reduce order picking time and one of the ways is by considering the proper routing for picking an order in the warehouse. In this study, the Dynamic Programming (DP) method and Dijkstra’s algorithm are applied to find the shortest distance for order picking in an automotive manufacturing company’s warehouse. The results show that the DP method is a simple yet competent approach compared to Dijkstra’s algorithm in finding the shortest distance to pick an order. DP is then adopted to determine the shortest distance for each order picker considering the limited volume he can picked at a time The results show a reduced of shortest time by 12% using this method. The shortest distance for each OP with items are also discussed thoroughly in this paper.