An upward line extension is a new improved product within an existing product category for the high end of the market. Many firms pursue line-extension strategies, but such strategies carry risks due to uncertain consumer taste, the internal competition between products, and the external...

Warehouse operations are rapidly becoming more robotized to increase performance and cut costs. One important new way of working is in collaboration between humans and robots. However, even though humans and their behavior remain essential for operational performance, human factors in...

Batching orders and routing order pickers is a commonly studied problem in many picker-to-parts warehouses. The impact of individual differences in picking skills on performance has received little attention. In this paper, we show that taking into account differences in the skills of individual...

Improving on existing products is an effective product differentiation strategy for firms. We refer to such improved products as next-generation products (NGPs). Research shows that 40% of product transitions fail and that some lead to bankruptcies. Bad timing is often mentioned as one of the...

In this article we focus on product return handling and warehousingissues. In some businesses return rates can be well over 20% andreturns can be especially costly when not handled properly. In spiteof this, many managers have handled returns extemporarily. The factthat quantitative methods...

Container terminal performance is largely determined by its design decisions, which include the number and type of quay cranes (QCs), stack cranes (SCs), transport vehicles, vehicle travel path, and stack layout. The terminal design process is complex because it is affected by factors such as...

The order batching problem (OBP) is the problem of determining the number of orders to be picked together in one picking tour. Although various objectives may arise in practice, minimizing the average throughput time of a random order is a common concern. In this paper, we consider the OBP for a...

Internal transport systems using automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are widely used in many facilities such as warehouses, distribution centers and transshipment terminals. Most AGV systems use online dispatching rules to control vehicle movements. In literature, there are many types of...

This paper presents a review on design and control of automated guided vehicle systems. We address most key related issues including guide-path design, estimating the number ofvehicles, vehicle scheduling, idle-vehicle positioning, battery management, vehicle routing, and conflict resolution. We...

In this paper, we study the problem of scheduling and dispatching vehicles in vehicle-based internal transport systems within warehouses and production facilities. We develop and use two rolling horizon policies to solve real-time vehicle scheduling problems. To solve static instances of...