Warehouse Layout Example

ISyE 6202---Fall 2003

A warehouse of size 120 x 160 ft. consists of storage bays of size 20 x 20 ft. There
are 3 docks. Dock P1 is located at (0,60), dock P2 is located at (60,0), and dock P3 is
located at (100,0). Loads are twice as likely to travel to and from dock P1 as to either of
the remaining 2 docks. Rectilinear travel is used. Two products are to be stored. The
storage area requirement for product A is 10,000 sq. ft., and the storage area requirement
for product B is 6,000 sq. ft. The movement requirements, measured in loads per month,
for product A is 2000 and is 2500 for product B. We wish to design the layout of the
products to minimize the expected distance traveled per month.
Conceptually we shall represent the warehouse as a rectangle with coordinates (0,0),
(0, 120), (120, 160), (160,0). Within this rectangle are 48 sub-rectangles each
representing a 20 x 20 ft. bay, i.e. 6 rows by 8 columns. A bay location will be designated
by the symbol (Ci, Rj), which means the ith column and jth row. For example, the
coordinates representing the bay (C2,R3) are (20,60), (20,80), (40,80), (40,60).
First, we rank the items according to desirability, as follows:
ITEM RANKING
Item A
2000
25

Movement Requirements (Loads/Month)

Storage Requirements (Bays)
RATIO

80

Item B
2500
15
167

B>A

Thus, the top 15 bays should be assigned to item B, the next best 25 bays should be
assigned to item A, and the last 8 bays should be left empty.
Next, we need to rank the bay locations according to desirability. We rank the
locations from lowest to highest by the expected distance traveled from the particular bay
to the docks. We assume that we are equally likely to find the product at any physical
location with the bay. To compute the expectation, first compute for each bay the
expected distance from that bay to each of the docks. Remember to use rectilinear travel.
For convenience, one can choose to measure this distance in bay-units corresponding in
this specific case to 20 ft. increments. Next, take a weighted average of these distances
using the respective probabilities of having to travel to/from the docks. For example, the
expected distance traveled from (C2,R3) to the docks is: 2 units (40 ft.) to P1, 5 units to
P2, and 7 units to P3. The average is 2(0.5)+5(0.25)+7(0.25)=4 units (80 ft.).
Below is a table that shows how to obtain the expected distances and ranking of the
locations for this problem:
LOCATION RANKING
P1 P2 P3

E(D) RANK

P1 P2 P3

E(D) RANK

R1
R2
C R3
1 R4
R5
R6

3
2
1
1
2
3

8
7
6
5
4
3

10
9
8
7
6
5

6.0
5.0
4.0
3.5
3.5
3.5

R1
R2
C R3
3 R4
R5
R6

P1
5
4
3
3
4
5

P2
6
5
4
3
2
1

P3
8
7
6
5
4
3

R1
R2
C R3
5 R4
R5
R6

P1
7
6
5
5
6
7

P2
7
6
5
4
3
2

R1
R2
C R3
7 R4
R5
R6

P1
9
8
7
7
8
9

P2
9
8
7
6
5
4

30
21
13
1
1
1

R1
R2
C R3
2 R4
R5
R6

4
3
2
2
3
4

7
6
5
4
3
2

9
8
7
6
5
4

6.0
5.0
4.0
3.5
3.5
3.5

30
21
13
1
1
1

E(D) RANK
6.0
30
5.0
21
4.0
13
3.5
1
3.5
1
3.5
1

R1
R2
C R3
4 R4
R5
R6

P1
6
5
4
4
5
6

P2
6
5
4
3
2
1

P3
7
6
5
4
3
2

E(D) RANK
6.25
36
5.25
27
4.25
16
3.75
10
3.75
10
3.75
10

P3
6
5
4
3
2
1

E(D) RANK
6.75
39
5.75
29
4.75
20
4.25
16
4.25
16
4.25
16

R1
R2
C R3
6 R4
R5
R6

P1
8
7
6
6
7
8

P2
8
7
6
5
4
3

P3
6
5
4
3
2
1

E(D) RANK
7.5
43
6.5
37
5.5
28
5.0
21
5.0
21
5.0
21

P3
7
6
5
4
3
2

E(D) RANK
8.5
46
7.5
43
6.5
37
6.0
30
6.0
30
6.0
30

R1
R2
C R3
8 R4
R5
R6

P1
10
9
8
8
9
10

P2
10
9
8
7
6
5

P3
8
7
6
5
4
3

E(D) RANK
9.5
48
8.5
46
7.5
43
7.0
40
7.0
40
7.0
40

The top 15 locations are {C1,C2,C3} X {R3,R4,R5,R6} {C4} X {R4,R5,R6}, and

these should be assigned to item B. The bottom 8 locations are (C6,R1) {C7} X
{R1,R2} {C8} X {R1,R2,R3,R4, R5}, and these should be left unassigned. All other
locations should be assigned to product A.