Abstract:

One of the most important elements of the supply chain is the warehouses. Effective warehouse layout reduces delivery time to the customer and the cost of storage. In this study, warehouse layout problem in a ceramic factory with multiple warehouses and heterogeneous raw materials is discussed. For the solution of the problem, a multi-objective mixed integer mathematical model is proposed. The first aim of the model is to assign the raw materials to the shelves considering the raw material priority coefficients by minimizing the transportation distance between two warehouses and four factories and the second one is minimizing amount of shelf used in these warehouses. As the problem is classified as NP-Hard, in addition to the mathematical model, a heuristic algorithm has been also developed to solve large-scale problems. Based on this heuristic, a decision support system (DSS) with a user-friendly interface has been proposed for the engineers in the factory. By the help of proposed DSS, more efficient use of warehouses and systematic storage of items have been provided. In this manner, total transportation cost is decreased approximately 61% in the factory.

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