Improving warehouse picking efficiency using product families

Author

Xiaoyue Shan

Publication Date

5-3-2017

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Aase, Gerald

Degree Name

B.S. (Bachelor of Science)

Legacy Department

Department of Operations Management and Information Systems

Abstract

This research explores how items are grouped into product families in a manner that reduces travel time (or distance) for operators picking orders in a warehouse. By identifying items commonly ordered together and locating those items together in the warehouse, operators can pick multiple items using a single trip rather than separate trips to different warehouse locations. Using secondary data source provided by our business sponsor, this research uses K-means clustering analysis and Market basket analysis as the primary analytic methodologies to generate SKU families. Other technical tools are MS Excel, MS Access and SAS University Edition. This final report gathers the various deliverables pertaining to the four analytic steps: 1) Getting & Exploring Data, 2) Cleaning Data, 3) Analyzing Data, and 4) Presenting Results. Final results reveal fifty items grouped into 6 families can reduce warehouse picking expenses of $420,000 by $40,134.85. This reflects a 9.6% reduction in total warehouse labor expenses.

Recommended Citation

Shan, Xiaoyue, "Improving warehouse picking efficiency using product families" (2017). Honors Capstones. 659.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/studentengagement-honorscapstones/659

Extent

37 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Dataset/Spreadsheet||Image||Text