Convergence in Bucket Brigades in a Tree-Shaped Picking System

Abstract EN

Previous works on the dynamics of bucket brigades have mainly focused on linear production systems or tree-shaped assembly systems with insignificant walk-back time, but this assumption is invalid for most city picking systems.

We propose a two-truck bucket brigade tree-shaped picking system when truck walk-back time is significant and analyze the dynamics of the system in each region of the parameter space, showing that relatively complex picking systems can enjoy the benefit of self-balance with minimal managerial intervention and provide insights and operating principles for the implementation and management of the bucket brigade picking system.