R.

Pandit
IMSE Department,
Iowa State University,
Response Time Considerations for
Ames, IA 50011
Optimal Warehouse Layout Design
U. S. Palekar We present a queueing theoretic model of a rectangular warehouse with multivehicle
material handling system to study the effect of warehouse design on the response
Department of Mechanical and Industrial time. The response time of the material handling system is shown to decrease with
Engineering, districting of the warehouse into service zones. An iterative procedure is presented
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for districting and optimal locations of input/output points. The effect of the rate
1206 West Green Street,
Urbana, IL 61801
of arrival of calls on optimal door location is shown to be significant.

1 Introduction
Today, as warehouses are increasingly being computerized
and automated guided vehicles are being employed for material
handling, the efficiency of the material handling system has
become an important consideration. The need to provide raw
material at work stations and remove finished parts from the
work stations rapidly so as to facilitate just-in-time (JIT) man-
ufacture implies that the time between the placing of an order
and the supply of materials must be minimized. The time which
we call the response time of the material handling system should
be considered while designing the layout of work-in-process
warehouses.
In this paper we present a queueing theoretic approach for
the optimal internal design of an automated warehouse with
a multi-vehicle material handling system. The warehouse stud-
ied is not an AS/RS system. The problem of internal layout
design of warehouses has been studied extensively by several
authors. These studies have mostly focussed on developing and
examining the relationships between the warehouse design and
the total warehouse construction and/or material handling
costs, see for example Azadivar (1996), Bassan et al. (1980),
Berry (1968), Francis and White (1974), Rosenblatt and Roll
(1984), Roberts (1972), and Tompkins and White (1984). A
cost function is developed in these models assuming that the
warehouse is a continuum. The layout is optimized to minimize
this cost. However, these models do not consider the response
time of the warehouse. We investigate the effects of the design
on response time and suggest a method for optimal design
based on response time.
The response time of the material handling system is the
time taken by the material handling system to serve the order
from the moment the order arrives at the input/output point
(door) till the vehicle returns back to the door for another
order. Therefore, the response time is the sum of the waiting
time of the order at the door till a vehicle becomes available,
the time taken to reach its intended location, the pick/place
time at that location and the time taken to return to door.
To study the effects of layout on response time we present
a queueing theoretic model of the warehouse operation. In
Contributed by the Production Engineering Division for publication in the
JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING FOR INDUSTRY. Manuscript received May 1988; revised
July 1992. Associate Technical Editor: S. G. Kapoor.
section 2 we present the basic model. The effect of changes in
model parameters on the optimal layout are also explored in
this section. Section 3 details a simulation model of the ware-
house to examine the effects of congestion due to blocking.
In section 4 we present the ideas of districting the warehouse
and optimal location of I/O points. Finally, in section 5 we
present some conclusions.
2 Models and Assumptions
We analyze an automated warehouse with automated guided
or autonomous vehicles. The warehouse is assumed to be rec-
tangular in shape. This shape is the optimal geometric shape
for storing rectangular units such as pallets, Berry (1968).
Within the warehouse the material is stored on racks. These
racks are arranged parallel to a side of the warehouse. As
shown in Fig.l, racks are arranged back-to-back. A set of
back-to-back racks form a block. Space between blocks con-
stitute the aisles. For ease of analysis, we assume that each
block has aisle space surrounding it. Thus half the width of
an aisle is associated with each block. Blocks are arranged in
a rectangular grid. This creates a network of aisles through
which material handling vehicles travel. Aisles that are parallel
to the pick-face of the racks permit unidirectional travel whereas
aisles that run perpendicular to the pick-face permit bidirec-
tional travel. Such an aisle arrangement reduces problems of
blockage and is common in large warehouses. Input to and
output from the warehouse occurs at doors. The doors are
arranged such that they face an aisle. The warehouse consid-
ered here is distinct from an AS/RS system. Thus the term
rectangular warehouse implies the shape of the warehouse and
is not the same as square-in-time, a term coined by Bozer and
White (1986) in the context of AS/RS systems.
The warehouse operates as follows: A storage or retrieval
request arrives at a door. If a vehicle is free the request is
immediately serviced, otherwise the request is entered in a
queue. The queue is emptied according to a first-come, first-
serve (FCFS) discipline. The material handling device accepts
a request at the door, travels to the location where the order
is to be stored/retrieved via a shortest path. The order is stored/
retrieved and the vehicle returns back to the door. Thus, we
only consider single-command operations. In an actual ware-
house, the queueing discipline is typically not FCFS but is

322/Vol. 115, AUGUST 1993 Transactions of the ASME

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Copyright © 1993 by ASME
 B ^
^
(Q,P)

?• Front Aisle
M^*™
mmi\ ^^m
c~~n mm ^m,
mil
'///////A ^^
W////S.

(1,1) (1,2)
I ( 1 , .) (1,P)
(1,P)

I Door

Distance to any point in block (i,j) from the door.

Fig. 1 Details of a layout

more priority based. However, under some reasonable con- This expression requires the first and second moments of the
ditions the measures of effectiveness for the queueing system service time distribution. The expected service time for any
have the same values (Gross and Harris, 1974). call is given as the sum of the expected time to travel to the
The material handling process in the warehouse can be mod- location and back to the door and expected pick/place time
eled as a queueing system. We assume that the requests for both at the door and at the location of the load. The travel
storage and retrieval arrive according to Poisson process at time itself may involve some time that is lost due to congestion
the door of the warehouse. We assume a random storage policy or blocking by other vehicles. The phenomenon of congestion
in the warehouse hence the destination of an order is distributed is very complex and is very difficult to model mathematically.
as a discretely uniform distribution. The material handling We study the effects of congestion on response time using
vehicles act as servers. The service time of any call is the sum simulation of the system and exclude it from our analytical
of the time taken by the vehicle to reach the destination of the model. The pick and place time does not depend on the location
call, time taken to perform the pick/place operation and the of the load and simply adds on to the expected service time
time taken by the vehicle to come back to the door. The travel without affecting the second moment. For ease of exposition
time to a call is a random variable and depends on the location we assume that pick and place time is negligible. If pick and
of the call. This time is typically not exponentially distributed. place time is significant it may be added into the formula for
Therefore, we assume a general distribution for the service expected service time.
time. With Poisson arrival, general service time and multiple To compute the expected travel time to a call we assume
servers the material handling process is similar to an M/G/K that the destinations of calls are distributed according to a
queue, where M represents the Poisson arrival, G represents discrete uniform distribution. The expected service time is then
general service time, and K is the number of vehicles employed. computed as follows:
The waiting time component of the response time can now be Consider Fig. 1. Let the destination of the call be in the (;',
computed as the waiting time in queue of the M/G/K queue. y)th block. Because travel between racks is unidirectional, the
Unfortunately, exact expressions for waiting time in an M/G/ distance to reach any point in the block is constant and equals
K queue are not available; however, good approximations do twice the time to reach the nearest corner of the block plus
exist. We use such an approximation by Nozaki and Ross the time to circumnavigate around the block. Let dy be the
(1978). Conflicting results regarding the adequacy of this ap- distance travelled to service any call in the (/, y)th block and
proximation are presented by Kimura (1983) and Van Hoorn v be the average velocity with which a vehicle travels. Then
(undated). In the context of location analysis Batta and Berman the expected service time E[s] to service any call in any block
(1988) show that the Nozaki-Ross approximation is reasonably is given as
accurate.
The expression for the waiting time in an M/G/K queue is da
approximated by the following expression: E[s] = (2)
v (total number of blocks)

\KE[s2] (E[s])K-}
W = (1)
" ^ {\E[s])J (KE[(s])K
2(K-l)\(K-\E[s])2
_U j\ (K-l)l(K-\E[s])

The waiting time expression also requires the second moment

where, of the service time E[s2]. It can be computed as
, ~\2
Wq = expected waiting time in queue
A= rate of arrival of calls at the door
E[s] = expected service time
E[s2] = (3)
EI^: second moment of service time (total number of blocks)

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 ^m ^m ^m (Q,P)

777777,

^ ^ ^
(2,P)

^ ^
(1,1) (1,.) (1,P)
Door
ft
a Layout 1

R5 w. $
5
$A 84
s23 ^ ^ ^
A
^ ffi ^
^M ^M
^\W x\\\\\V-
'Z/Z//ZI, / / / / / / /
Door
• 11 Door

c Layout 3
b Layout 2
Fig. 2 Layout 1, layout 2, and layout 3

(P+1 +2)
The layout shown in Fig. 1 is examined for three different
door locations and a fixed capacity.
The following notation is used for modelling the problem:
E[s]
= b f ( ffl / l+ ^ + (g+1) f g+1)
K = number of vehicles used in the warehouse X(2/2 + a) 2 + 2fl2 + (P + 2) ( Q + l ) (2/2 + a) (w/, + « ) + ;
P = number of blocks in one row
Q = number of blocks in one column
m = number of shelves in one row of a block x(P+2)(ml1 + a) + a(Q+l)(2l2 + a) (7)
h = number of shelves in one column of a rack
l\ = length of a shelf Layout 3 Fig. 2(c):
l2 = width of a shelf
a = width of an aisle E[s] = (Ji±n(mll+a)+iQ±^i2l2+a)+E (8)
C = capacity of the warehouse = IPQmh
R(t) = response time (P+
The floor layout is independent of the height of shelves and E[s2] = T +1 W") 2
h. Hence we exclude these from the analysis and use h=\.
The three layouts with different door locations are shown as (Q+1KQ + 2)
Layout 1, Layout 2, and Layout 3 in Fig. 2. (2/2 + «) 2 + - + ( P + l ) (Q + 2) (2/2 + a)
Using this notation the exact closed form expressions for
E[s] and E[s2] are formulated as a function of the number of
rows and columns of rack. These expressions are as follows: x(m/, + a ) + « ( P + l ) (mll + a)+-(Q+2) (2l2 + a) (9)
Layout 1 Fig. 2(a): The derivation of these expressions is given in Appendix A.
The response time, the area of the warehouse, and the perimeter
E[s] = ^±i) ( m / l +fl)+ (G±il(2/2+a) + a (4) of the warehouse are all affected by the choice of P and Q.
We concentrate on minimizing the response time with P and
(P+1X2P+1) ,2, (8+D(2Q+l) Q as the decision variables. The problem may be formulated
£[•^=72 (mh + a) + as follows:
X(2/ 2 + a ) 2 + 2fl2 + 2 ( / ' + l ) (Q+1) {mh + a) (2l2 + a) Minimize R(t) = Wq + E[s] (10)
subject to:
+ 2a(P+l) (mll+a) + 2a(Q+l) (2/2 + a) (5) p >0

Layout 2 Fig. 2(b): Q >0

^±2) ( w / l + f l ) + ie±l) ( 2 / 2 + . ) + f l / 2 m > C/2PQ

E[s] = (6)
P, Q, m>Q and integer

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 Table 1 Results of analytical model

No. of
Layout P Q m 1 Width Perimeter
E[s] Length Area
Vehicles 2
call/min min ft. ft. ft.
ft.
-5
1 6 18 5 10 to 0.15 5.79 242 258 1000 62436
-5 242
1 2 . 6 18 5 10 toO.30 5.79 258 1000 62436

18 -5 258 62436
3 6 5 10 to 0.50 5.79 242 1000

10 13 , 4 -5 386 188
1 10 to0.20 4.22 1 148 72568
2 10 -5
2 13 4 10 to 0.45 4.22 386 188 1148 72568
10 13 4 -5 4.22 386 188 1148 72568
3
-5 190
1 4 26 5 10 toO.15 4.53 370 70300
3
2 4 26 5 10" to 0.45 4.53 190 370 1 190 70300

26 -5 70300
3 4 5 10 tnO 65 4.53 190 370 1120

E[s] and E[s ] are defined as above for a particular layout
and Wq is given by Eq. (1). The solution to this minimization
problem provides optimal values P*, Q*, and m* which define
the layout.
The model is a nonlinear integer programming problem. The
decision variables P, Q, m are integer variables. Since the values
of P, Q, m are dependent upon the capacity C, we first solve
the problem replacing the integrality constraints with linear
constraints. To solve the nonlinear problem we use the General
Interactive Optimizer (GINO) which uses the Generalized Re-
duced Gradient method. To ensure that the solution given is
globally optimum we performed a branch and bound. Inter-
estingly enough, for the problems we solved the solution was
always obtained by rounding up or down the fractional so-
lution.
We next present an example which illustrates the above
points. The following values were used for a, lu l2, C and v.
a 6 ft.
h 8 ft
h 4 ft.
v 50 ft./min.
C 1000 units.
As the waiting time component of response time is dependent
on the rate of arrival of calls and the number of vehicles in
use, we expect that the waiting time will change as X and K
change. Does this affect the optimal layout design? To answer
this we consider the waiting time expression. The waiting time
depends on the first and second moments of service time. If
X is very small, that is, no queueing occurs, then Wq ~ 0 and
the optimal solution is the one that minimizes E[s]. Thus our
model reduces to the problem of minimizing service time when
we consider very small values of X. As X increases, the waiting
time increases and the optimal solution shifts towards the so-
lution that minimizes E[s ]. In our problem, Pand Q are integer
constrained and the first and second moments are minimized
at the same integer solutions. Thus X does not affect the layout.
Increasing the number of vehicles similarly causes changes in
response time but not in the optimal layout. Table 1 shows
the optimal solutions for different values of X and K. The small
values of 1 shown represent the situation where service time
is to be minimized. As can be seen, the layout is unaffected
by changes in X and K.
The effect of door location on optimal layout design, how-
ever, is significant. Layouts 2 and 3 are more efficient than
layout 1 as the E[s] for layout 2 and layout 3 are rectangular
in shape with aspect ratio of about 0.5, with the door being
at the center of the longer side. Layout 1 with a door at a
corner forms a near square shape. These results are similar to
those obtained by Francis and White (1974).
3 Effect of Congestion Due to Blocking
Earlier we assumed that vehicles do not block each other
when they travel within a warehouse, that is, there is no conges-
tion. To study the validity of this assumption we simulate the
example problem. We assume that a vehicle can block another
vehicle when it is picking or placing material in a rack. Further,
we assume that a vehicle cannot be blocked except when it is
in the aisle from which it has to store/retrieve material. This
is plausible because a vehicle management system can easily
route the vehicle through an alternate path of the same length
if there is a possibility of block while travelling.
The simulation model was developed using the SLAM II
simulation language as a discrete event model. The model was
run for different values of the number of vehicles in a fixed
layout. The rate of arrival of calls at the door was adjusted
such that the ratio of total number of calls to the number of
vehicles employed remained constant. This was necessary to
keep all the vehicles busy without developing an excessive queue.
If the rate of arrivals is kept constant and the number of
vehicles is increased it is easy to see that beyond a point any
more added vehicles will never be utilized. On the other hand,
if the rate of arrival of calls is very high then the vehicle in
use will not be able to handle all the calls and a large queue
develops. Therefore, it is necessary to balance the ratio of the
total number of calls to the number of vehicles employed.
The simulation was run for a warehouse of capacity C =
1040 with P = 10, Q= 13, and m = 4. A pick/place time of 1
minute was assumed. This amounts to roughly 15 percent of
the service time when a single vehicle is employed. The run
time was 6000 units with the first 1000 time units as warm up
period. The rate of arrival of calls was adjusted so that the
ratio of total number of calls that arrived during the run time
to total number of vehicles employed was kept at a constant
125. The results of simulation are shown in Table 2.
From the results shown in Table 2 it can be seen that when
the number of vehicles employed is small there is little conges-
tion in the layout. Consequently, the mean service time of the
vehicles is low but due to a smaller number of vehicles the
waiting time in queue is large. It is interesting to note that with
a large number of vehicles the waiting time is significantly
reduced, the congestion and the mean service time become
large but the response time remains practically unaffected! We
find that congestion does not have a significant effect on the
response time. This is partly due to the fact that in a large
warehouse with random storage, orders are widely dispersed
and the probability that two vehicles require the same ware-
house location at the same time is small. Clearly, if the pick
and place time is increased there will be more congestion. For
efficient service the number of vehicles can be increased such

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 Table 2 Results of simulation E(cong) = expected congestion time

No. of Inter Ave. No

Vehicles Arrival R(t) Wq E[Cong] E[s] of Calls
A B
Time Served
minute minute minute minute minute

1.00 40.00 23.10 16.14 0.00 6.96 125.33

Dl D2
2.00 20.00 18.95 8.58 0.00 10.37 130.72

3.00 13.33 17 .26 6.04 0.02. 11.22 121.56

a
• •
4 .00 10.00
l x i b-x I L-(a+b)
17.07 5.26 0.01 11.81 127.58
•4 fej«g •|4—_ js|<j ; (•
5.00 8.00 16.82 Fig. 3 Optimal district boundary
4.88 0.01 11 . 94 125.13

6.00 6. 67 16.52 3.94 0.01 12.58 126.43

7 .00 5.71 16.42 2.94 0.03 13.48 127.53 elsewhere in the system the call is handled by the closest idle
server.
8.00 5.00 16.35 2.77 0.03 13.58 126.67 (4) If all the servers are busy then the call is placed in a
queue which is depleted according to a first-come, first-serve
9.00 4 .44 16.22 2 .14 0.02 14 .08 125.59
basis.
10.00 4.00 16.34 2.39 0.04 13. 95 125.77 (5) Lastly, a vehicle always returns to the door to which it
is assigned after completing a service.
11.00 3.64 16.13 1.26 0.04 14 .87 124.39

12.00 3.33 16.17 1.41 0.04 14.76 124.67
13.00 3.08 16.01 2 .37 0.03 122.38
13.64
14 .00 2.86 16.14 0.76 0.04 15 .38 124.78
15.00 2.67 15.86 0. 69 0.05 15 .17 125.49
that all the vehicles are utilized and the maximum queue length
remains acceptable. The acceptable queue length may be a user
defined parameter.
4 Finding Optimal Districts and Door Locations
In this section we consider the problem of finding locations
for a given number of doors and the areas to be serviced from
each door so that the response time for any call is minimized.
Such problems of location of service facilities and designing
service regions have been studied extensively in urban systems,
e.g., designing police patrol policies, Larson and Odoni (1981),
and locating emergency units, Carter, Chaiken, and Ignall
(1972). Berman and Mandowsky (1986) present a heuristic
algorithm for districting in K servers on a network. These ideas
can be extended to material handling systems.
In large warehouses, where material handling activities are
carried out by a number of vehicles, if the vehicles are allowed
to store/retrieve material from the entire warehouse, then the
expected travel time becomes very large and consequently, so
does the response time. However, if we could partition the
warehouse into several service zones (districts) and allocate
zones to vehicles then the expected travel time for each vehicle
will be reduced. Server cooperation is also known to reduce
waiting time in queueing systems.
In this section we restrict our attention to the following
warehouse model: consider a rectangular warehouse in which
two doors are to be located on one side of the warehouse. At
each door of the warehouse a service vehicle is available for
storage/retrieval activities. The warehouse is partitioned into
two service areas and each vehicle is allocated a service area
as its primary service zone. The warehouse operates as follows:
(1) Calls arrive at the doors of their primary service area
according to a Poisson process.
(2) A call for service requires travelling to some point within
the warehouse and every point in the warehouse is equally
likely, i.e., we have a spatial Poisson process.
(3) A call for service is handled by the server allocated to
that district. If the server is busy and there is an idle server
To Find Optimal Districts. Consider the layout shown in
Fig. 3. Let the dimensions of the warehouse be scaled such
that the width is 1 and the length is L. Without loss of gen-
erality, we also assume that the distances have been scaled by
the speed of the vehicles and are measured in time units. Dl
and D2 are the two doors. Door Dl is located at a distance a
from the lower left-hand corner. Let the door D2 be located
at a distance (a + b) from the lower left corner and the optimal
boundary be at a distance x from the door Dl as shown. Let
region A be the primary service region for the vehicle at door
Dl and region B be the primary service region for the vehicle
at door D2.
The expected service time for vehicle 1 if it is restricted to
region A is given by
E[sl(A)]=(a2 + x2)/(a + x) (11)
The expected service time for vehicle 2 if it is restricted to
region B is given by
E[s2(B)] = [(b~x)2 + \L-(a + b)\2/{L-(a + x)} (12)
The corresponding expected service times if vehicles are free
to service the entire warehouse are given by
E[si(A+B)] = [a2+(L-a)2]/L (13)
2 2
E[s2(A+B)] = [{L-(a + b)} +(a + b) ]/L (14)
Let X be the rate of arrival of calls for the overall ware-
house then rate of calls arriving for region A is given as
\i = [(a + x)/L}\ (15)
and the rate of calls arriving for region B is given as
\2=[{L-(a + x)}/L]\ (16)
The operation of each door can be viewed as an M/G/l
queueing system with Xi and X2 as rates of arrival of calls and
E[si (A+B)] and E[s2(A+B)] as mean service times for the
doors Dl and D2, respectively. To find the system wide mean
service time we require the fraction of total service conducted
by each vehicle. Hence, to find the probabilities of these two
servers to be busy or free we use the state-space approach used
in the hypercube queueing model, Larson and Odoni (1981).
The hypercube queueing model is a descriptive model for spa-
tial M/M/K queue with distinguishable servers. Although,
service times in warehouses are not exponentially distributed,
they can be modelled as such for two reasons. First, in the
context of urban systems the results with such an assumption
have been found to closely approximate general distributions.
Second, there are very few results in queueing theory for

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 STEP 2: Find door location
(/) Find new ak+' = (a k + xk)/2
(/;) Find new bK+i={L- (ak + xk))/2~ak¥i
STEP 3: Termination
(0 ak+l -a* < e for some e > 0 then stop
(K)Set Ar = Ar+l go to STEP 1

Effect of Rate of Arrival on Location of Doors. Consider

-^f#- —@M^§— —^4^^—
Fig. 4 Effect of rate of arrival of calls on door location
M/G/K systems with distinguishable servers. The model com-
putes system performance measures such as busy time periods,
waiting times and workloads for different servers. For our
system, let the probabilities be defined as follows:
Poo = both servers free
Poi = server 1 busy and server 2 free
Pi0 = server 1 free and server 2 busy
Pu = both servers busy
In the hypercube model these probabilities are defined for
an M/M/K queueing system. Since the formulations for such
probabilities are not available for M/G/K queues, we use the
above as an approximation.
Let ixi and fi2 be defined as the mean service rate for vehicles
1 and 2 then
m = \/E[si (A+B)]
m=l/E[s2(A+B)]
The probabilities are given as
Poo=[AH + Ai2-A]/[Aii +ft>+ A]
2 2
P n = [2X /G*i + /i2) ]Poo
the layout as shown in Fig. 4. D\ and D2 are the doors to be
located. From Eq: (26) it can be seen that if the doors are
located equidistantly and the rate of arrival of call is the same
for both of them then the optimal boundary is at the center
of the length of the layout. Let region A be the primary region
for D\ and region B for D2. The expected service time for
vehicles 1 and 2 if they are restricted to travel in their primary
zones is as given in Eqs. (11) and (12).
The expected service time for vehicles 1 and 2 if they are
free to service the entire warehouse is given as
E[Si(A+B)] = [a2 + x2)/a (27)
2 2
E[s2(A+B) = [a + x ]/a (28)
Let the rate of arrival of calls for the entire warehouse be
X, then the rate of arrival of calls for D\ and D2 is given as
X, = X2 = X/2. The rate of service for vehicles 1 and 2 are given
(17) as
^ = l/E[Sl(A+B)] (29)
H2=VE[s2(A+B)] (30)
For sake of simplicity we assume that there is no queueing
at the doors, that is, the response time is equal to the service
time for any call. The operation of this system can be viewed
as an M/G/K queue with zero queue capacity. Larson and
(18) Odoni (1981) give the probabilities for the states of the server
for an M/M/K system. We use these probabilities as approx-
(19)
imation to our system. For our system these probabilities can
be simplified as
(20) 4a 2
(21) 4a + 4\a(a + xl) + \z(a2 + xiy
2 2

2 2 2
Poi = i I 2A /*2 + XiO*i+ M2) ) / ((Mi + M2) (M. + X)) Foo (22) 2\2(a2 + x2)2
Pn = 2 (32)
^ 1 O = [ ( 2 X V + X2(MI + M2) 2 )/!(M 1 +M2) 2 (MI + X))]POO (23) 4a + 4\a(a2 + x2)+\2(a2 + x2)2
The system wide expected service time is given as \(a2 + x2) n
Poi = (33)
E[s(A)] = {1/(1 -Pn)} {Pl0E[Sl (A+B)]+P0lE[s2(A+B)]} 2a
+ {Pm/W-Pn)}{hE[sl (A)] + \2E[s2 (B)]} (24) \(a2 + x2)
(34)
E[s(A)] is a function of x. Therefore, the optimal boundary 2a
for the district can be found by
Using Eq. (24) the mean system wide service time can be given
dE[s(A)]/dx =0 (25) as
From (18), (19), and (25) we get \(a2 + x2)+a[(a-x)2 + x2]
x=b/2 + (\/4) [0i2-/*i)/l>./*2 0*i + X)0t2 + X))J (26) E[s(A)] = (35)
l-Py a2

This service time is minimized to find the optimal door lo-

To Find Optimum Locations for Doors. The optimal lo-
cation of the door in a district is the point on the boundary
which minimizes the mean service time. It is trivial to see that
for the layout in Fig. 3 the optimal door location for district
A is at (a + x)/2 and for district B is at [L-(a + x)}/2.
An Iterative Procedure For Optimal Districting and Door
Locations. The procedure is given as below:
STEP 0: Initialization
(0 Choose some initial values for a and b, say a = a°; b = b°
07) Set iteration index k = 0 and ak = a and bk = b
STEP 1: Find Boundary
(0 Estimate /4 and /4 using (18) and (19)
07) Estimate xk using (26)
cation. Table 3 shows the change in the door location with
different rates of arrival. The extremely small values of X in
the table represent the case when queueing delays are not con-
sidered and the model degenerates to minimizing service time.
In this case the two vehicles are free to service the entire ware-
house. We find that as X increases the doors get closer to each
other, that is, x decreases. For very large X the doors coincide.
This door movement occurs because of server cooperation. As
X increases and the queue builds up the servers have to travel
more frequently outside their districts. It is therefore more
efficient to move the door closer to the other district. In the
limiting case the doors are coincident. To contrast the optimal
door location against the common practice of locating to min-
imize travel time alone, column 4 of the table gives the values
for mean service time if the door location is fixed at x= 1.5.

Journal of Engineering for Industry AUGUST 1993, Vol. 1 1 5 / 3 2 7

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 Table is Effect of rate of arrival of calls on optimal door locations 12 Nozaki.S. A., and Ross, S. M., 1978, "Approximations in Finite-Capacity
Multi-Server Queues with Poisson Arrival," J. of Applied Problems, Vol. 15,
R a t e of Arrival Optimal Door Mean S e r v i c e Mean Service
No. pp. 826-836.
of C a l l s 1 Location x Time Time with x=l. 5 13 Roberts, S. D., 1972, "Optimal Warehouse Bay Configuration," AIIE
1 1.50 1.5
Trans., Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 178-185.
0.00 1.5
14 Rosenblatt, M. J., and Roll, Y., 1984, "Warehouse Design With Storage
Policy Considerations," Int. J. Prod. Res., Vol. 22, No. 5, pp. 809-821.
2 0.10 1.19 2.1 2.17 • 15 Tompkins, J. A., and White, J. A., 1984, Facilities Planning, John Wiley
and Sons, Inc.
3 0.20 1.00 2.5 2.68 16 Van Hoorn, M. H., "Algorithms and Approximations for Queueing Sys-
tems," WI Track # 8, Center for Mathematics and Computing Science, Stichting,
4 0.30 0.86 2.84
Matematisch Centrum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
3.16

5 0.40 0.74 3.17 3.68

A P P E N D I X A
6 0.50 0.63 3.54 4.27

7 0.60 0.54 3.95 5.00

Layout 1
8 0.70 0.46 4 .2 5.96
Consider layout 1 as shown in Fig. 2(a). The distance trav-
elled to service any call in a block from the door is equal to
9 0.80 0.39 5.00 7.29 twice the rectilinear distance to the nearest corner of the block
taking a shortest path plus the distance around the block. This
10 0.90 0.32 5.73 9.27 distance for (/, _/')th block is given as

434.93 „ di,= 2[i(mll + a) +j(2l2 + a)+a] (Al)

11 1.60 0.003
where,
It can be seen that significant improvement is obtained by width of an aisle
a-
locating the doors optimally. For X = 0.9 the mean service time h length of a shelf
is about half the mean service time if the door location is fixed h width of a shelf
at x = 1 . 5 . m number of shelves in a row
LetP number of columns of blocks
Q = number of rows of blocks
5 Conclusions
The expected distance travelled is given as
In this paper we introduce a new measure, response time,
Q
for evaluating the quality of warehouse layout. We established 1
convexity results for response time and suggest how optimal E[d\- J]Y,2[i(mll + a)+j(2l2 + a)+a] (A2)
2PQ ;=1 j=l
layouts can be generated. We also explored the ideas of dis-
tricting and optimal door location policies to minimize re- (P+1
sponse time. E[d] =
2 v '
W«) + ^ ( 2 /
2
2 + a)+*) (A3)
The ideas presented in this paper can be extended to more
general material handling situations. In particular, we plan to The expected service time is given as
extend these ideas to material handling systems on the factory (Jl±}l,mll+a)+(Qp}i2l2+a)+a) (A4)
floor.
m-
where v = average velocity of the vehicle.
References The second moment of service time is given as
1 Azadivar, F., 1986, "Minimum Cost Modular Design of Automated P Q
Warehousing Systems," Material Flow, Vol. 4, pp. 177-188. 1
2 Batta, R., and Berman, O., 1988, "A Location Model for A Facility
E[s2] = (A5)
2PQ
Operating As An M/G/K Queue," Working Paper, Department of Industrial
Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York,
April.
which on simplification reduces to Eq. (5).
3 Bassan, Y., Roll, Y., and Rosenblatt, M. J., 1980, "Internal Layout Design
of a Warehouse," AIIE Trans., Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 317-322, December.
Layout 2
4 Bozer, Y. A., and White, J. A., 1984, "Travel Time Models for Automated Consider layout 2 as shown in Fig. 2(b). Layout 2 may be
Storage/Retrieval Systems," HE Transactions, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 329-338, partitioned into two parts as shown. Each part is equivalent
December. to layout 1 and hence the expressions for E[s] and E[s2] can
5 Berman, O., and Mandowsky, R. R., 1986, "Location-Allocation on Con- be obtained by modifying dy as
gested Newtorks," Opres. Res., Vol. 26.
6 Berry, J. R., 1968, "Elements of Warehouse Layout," The Int. J. of Prod.
Res., Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 105-121. diJ=2 i(mll + a)+j(2l2 + a)+- (A6)
7 Carter, M. G., Chaiken, J. M., and Ignall, E., 1972, "Response Areas
for Two Emergency Units," Opres. Res., Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 571-594.
8 Francis, R. L., and White, J. A., 1974, Facility Layout and Location, An
and summing with P = P/2 in Eqs. (A2) and (A5).
Analytical Approach, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
9 Gross, D., and Harris, C. M., 1974, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory,
Layout 3
John Wiley and Sons, New York, New York. Similar to layout 2, layout 3 as shown in Fig. 2(c) can be
10 Kimura, T., 1983, "Diffusion Approximations for an M/G/m Queue," viewed as a special case of layout 1. The expressions for E[s]
Opres. Res., Vol. 31, pp. 304-321. and E[s2] can be obtained by modifying dtj as above and sum-
11 Larson, R. C , and Odoni, A. R., 1981, Urban Operation Research, Pren-
tice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
ming with Q = Q/2 in Eqs. (A2) and (A5).

3 2 8 / V o l . 115, AUGUST 1993 Transactions of the AS ME

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