Simulation-based Performance Analysis of a Miniload Multishuttle Order Picking System

In today's fluctuating business environment, flexibility, responsiveness, and reconfigurability in the field of warehousing systems are key characteristics as well as the level of automation, cost effectiveness and maximum throughput. The miniload multishuttle system represents relatively a new scalable automated storage and retrieval solution which provides considerable flexibility for adapting throughput capacity to meet market needs. The miniload multishuttle system comprises autonomous vehicles (shuttles), lifts, and a system of rails that facilitate movement of the vehicles in the x and y dimensions in a tier. In this new technology, the shuttles can be moved between different tiers by means of shuttle lifts. Especially in large and complex material flow systems, the modeling problem arises with the interactions between transactions and the collisions between shuttles. An agent-based simulation approach that differs from discrete-event simulation (DES) offers an alternative way to model the autonomous control of the multishuttle system. This research develops a simulation model for the miniload multishuttle order picking system using the multi-agent modeling approach. The main objective of this paper is to create a detailed simulation model and to evaluate the performance of the system in order to support in design process of miniload multishuttle order picking systems.