1 Presentation

• 
  02:00 PM - 02:25 PM

  Warehouse Logistics: past, present and future

  • Kees Jan Roodbergen, presenter, University of Groningen

  Warehouses play an important role in supply chains, for example by grouping products from different suppliers for combined shipment to the final customer. Especially in the context of e-commerce, the design of warehouse processes is challenging. Many logistics processes in warehouses can be formulated as Operations Research problems. Some of these problems are very specific to the warehousing context, but other problems prove to be special cases or interesting variants of more general OR problems. For example, the (Stochastic) Traveling Salesman Problem is well-known, and it also arises in warehouses. But interestingly, in the warehousing context, it is not only relevant to find a tour to visit the "cities", but it is also possible to change the locations of the "cities" to further reduce travel times. In this presentation, first a brief historical context on Operations Research in warehouses is provided. Secondly, recent advancements are highlighted, and finally ideas on future research directions are provided.