The travel time in carousel systems under the nearest item heuristic
A carousel is an automated warehousing system consisting of a large number of drawers rotating in a closed loop in either direction. The authors deal with the travel time needed to pick a list of \(n\) items when the carousel operates under the nearest item heuristic. Using probabilistic arguments based on properties of uniform order statistics, they derive closed form expressions for the distribution and moments of the travel time. The asymptotic behaviour of the travel time when \(n\) tends to infinity is also investigated.
scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1625606