Warehousing process improvement: The case of an airline company

• Autor(a) principal: Sousa, Francisca Fortunato de
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/21401
• topic: Inflight services; Optimization; Picking; Warehouse management; Storage location assignment problem; Otimização; Gestão de armazéns

With the intensification of competitiveness between airlines, there is a need to reflect on the management of airline operations. Logistics is not an exception, as it has a direct impact on operations and consequently the numbers of passengers that the airline will serve. Research suggests that the warehouse is one of the key elements of a supply chain (Frazelle, 2002; Gu, Goetschalckx, & McGinnis, 2007). Of the various activities taking place in the warehouse, order picking is the most costly, representing around 55% of the total costs of the warehouse (De Koster, Le-Duc, & Roodbergen, 2007). The present study investigates how the picking process in inflight catering services warehouse in the company X can be improved to become more efficient. Based on the literature review on strategies to improve the picking process, interviews with warehouse employees, and direct observation and archival records of company X, it was possible to conclude that the adoption of an SKU allocation policy would contribute to a reduction in the distances covered during the picking. Centred on a case study approach, the Storage Location Assignment Problem was solved by formulating a mathematical programming model and subsequently tested for two scenarios. The analysis of the study results allows the conclusion that the adoption of either of the proposed scenarios represents significant improvements compared to the current scenario concerning distances covered. Along with the study elaborated and together with the proposed recommendations, the picking process can be improved to become more efficient.