Manual and robotic storage and picking systems: a literature review

Abstract

The rising of e-commerce demands an increase in the performance of warehousing systems, which are being redesigned to deal with a mass volume of demands to be fulfilled as quickly as possible. The manual and robotic mobile fulfilment systems (RMFS) are the most commonly used for these activities. The former is a human-centred system that handles complex operations that current robots cannot perform. However, newer generations of autonomous robots are leading to a gradual replacement by the latter to increase productivity. Regardless of the system used, several interdependent problems must be solved for efficient storage and picking processes. Storage problems concern decisions on where to store products within the warehouse. Batching and picking problems include batching orders to be fulfilled, and the routes the pickers and robots should follow to retrieve the products demanded. This paper identifies the most relevant problems and the state-of-the-art research on these topics. We study the interactions among many of these interrelated problems and provide a critical analysis of the literature. Finally, eight research directions are identified and discussed.

Keywords:

• Warehousing
• manual
• robotic
• integrated warehousing problems
• research directions

Acknowledgements

We thank the editor-in-chief, an associate editor, and two anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This project was partly funded by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) under grants 2019-00094, 2020-00401, 2023-04167. This support is greatly acknowledged.