Crane and shuttle optimization in warehousing systems

We consider a modern warehousing system composed of a number of aisles, each one served by a crane and sided by a pair of racks, and a shuttle charging one unit load at the time which moves along a mono-dimensional path placed orthogonally with respect to the aisles axis. Two control algorithms to optimize the operations of the cranes (moving within the aisles of the warehouse) and the operations of the shuttle (moving on a straight line placed between the aisles and the picking/refilling area) respectively are proposed. To evaluate the performance of the proposed control algorithms we define three different cost indices; the first two indices look to the crane/aisle and shuttle areas as they were independent systems, while the third index measures the performance of the whole warehousing system. Finally extensive simulations are performed on the model developed in [2] to show the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms.