A BOM Oriented Class-Based Storage Assignment in an Automated Storage/Retrieval System

A storage assignment policy based on the needs of manufacturing operations can increase not only the performance of the automated storage/retrieval system (AS/RS) but also the performance of the production system. In general, the needs of manufacturing operations are embedded in material attributes, and the bill of material (BOM) is the best source to link material attributes. By employing the BOM as the backbone structure of a production system, a CIM system can be thoroughly integrated. Past work has identified a class-based assignment method for an AS/RS as a reasonable and efficient storage assignment policy. This study presents a BOM oriented class-based storage assignment method for an AS/RS. The proposed method possesses not only the advantage of a class-based storage method, but also the feasibility to integrate an AS/RS into a CIM system. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a case study is presented. A random storage assignment method is also employed to obtain the solution for the illustrative example. The results are used to compare with those obtained by the proposed method. From the results of comparative studies, the proposed BOM-oriented class-based AS/RS assignment method is shown to be efficient.