Warehouse

Front. Eng. Manag.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42524-021-0178-9
REVIEW ARTICLE
Lu ZHEN, Haolin LI
A literature review of smart warehouse operations

management
© The Author(s) 2021. This article is published with open access at link.springer.com and journal.hep.com.cn 2021
Abstract E-commerce, new retail, and other changes could drive dramatic changes. Going by the boom of
have highlighted the requirement of high efficiency and e-commerce, e-commerce warehouses are among the most
accuracy in the logistics service. As an important section in promising applications among various smart warehouses.
logistics and supply chain management, warehouses need According to State Post Bureau of PRC (2020), the volume
to respond positively to the increasing requirement. The of express delivery in the “Double 11” online shopping
“smart warehouse” system, which is equipped with festival has reached over 3.9 billion packages, and the total
emerging warehousing technologies, is increasingly volume of express delivery in 2020 exceeds 70 billion
attracting the attention of industry and technology giants packages. Retail and technology giants are investing
as an efficient solution for the future of warehouse heavily in smart warehouses to process the explosive
development. This study provides a holistic view of e-commerce logistics demand in a timely and cost-
operations management problems within the context of effective way. For instance, Alibaba’s Cainiao invests in
smart warehouses. We provide a framework to review smart logistics parks in China with a “smart” system to
smart warehouse operations management based on the manage warehouse complexity (Cainiao, 2018). Amazon
characteristics of smart warehouses, including the per- launched a fulfillment center with a robotic mobile
spectives of information interconnection, equipment fulfillment system (RMFS) in Sparrows Point in late
automation, process integration, and environmental sus- 2018, which features Amazon’s robotic technology and
tainability. A comprehensive review of relevant literature is innovative processes that enable the associates to exceed
then carried out based on the framework with four customer expectations (Technical.ly, 2019) (see Fig. 1).
perspectives. This study could provide future research The concept of smart warehouses is not limited to the
directions on smart warehouses for academia and industry e-commerce industry. Other industries also tap into logistic
practitioners. potentials through smart warehouses to deal with the
explosion of logistic needs. As a part of the smart grid plan
Keywords smart warehouse, operations management, in China, State Grid Corporation of China has deployed
interconnection, automation, integration, sustainability* smart warehouses in all its provincial branches, which are
used to store emergency materials and daily spare parts of
1 Introduction
In recent decades, the rapid developments in technology
have led to disruptive growth in the logistics section. Smart
warehouses have emerged as a product of smart tech-
nologies, fueling a wave of an industry transformation that
Received February 19, 2021; accepted June 7, 2021
✉
Lu ZHEN ( ), Haolin LI
School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
E-mail: [email protected]
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of Fig. 1 RMFS with mixed shelves and picking station (accessed
China (Grant Nos. 72025103 and 71831008). via amazonrobotics.com).
2 Front. Eng. Manag.
the grid system (see Fig. 2). Smart warehouses help State support of the smart warehouse. Equipped with automatic
Grid improve the capability of emergency response and facilities, smart warehouses can achieve high automation
daily material management. Furthermore, in the port levels in warehouse activities. Equipment automation can
industry, automated container terminals (ACTs) also improve warehouse productivity while reducing the need
belong to a type of “smart warehouse” system. Shanghai for manual labor. Besides, the operations management of
Yangshan ACT is the largest ACT globally, with 130 smart warehouses pays more attention to equipment
automated guided vehicles (AGVs) (China Daily, 2017). characteristics on strategic-level decisions and product
Based on the examples above, smart warehouses have characteristics on tactical-level decisions, providing a
spread across many industries and become common holistic view of the technology, and improves the precision
choices to cope with the market’s changing needs and of decision-making.
enhance productivity. Process integration. Process integration is the
requirement of smart warehouse operations management
and functions as operational support in the framework.
Process integration tries to implement overall planning
among various warehouse processes and focuses on the
new operational problems arising in the operation of smart
warehouses. The objective of process integration is to
achieve coordination while eliminating discordance of
warehouse operations management.
Environmental sustainability. Environmental sus-
tainability is the future of smart warehouses, supported by
equipment automation and process integration. The
sustainable development of smart warehouses concerns
the problems relevant to the environment, such as energy
Fig. 2 Smart warehouse of State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power consumption and carbon emission. The operations mana-
Co., Ltd. (accessed via tech.jschina.com.cn/jrsd/201812/ gement of smart warehouses on strategic, tactical, and
t20181219_2118902.shtml). operational levels should implement in an eco-friendly
way to create a sustainable roadmap in the warehouse
Driven by industry needs, academic research on smart section.
warehouses has been a hot topic. Some scholars have put To characterize smart warehouses’ basic characteristics
forward their idea on smart warehouses and smart logistics. and perspectives, we build a conceptual framework, which
According to the summary of McFarlane et al. (2016), the is shown in Fig. 3. In this framework, smart warehouses
term “intelligent logistics” refers to different logistics are building roofs in the environment of warehouse
operations, which are planned, managed, or controlled in a operations management. Information interconnection is
more intelligent way compared with conventional solu- the base of warehouses, which provides information
tions. Wen et al. (2018)’s work shows a strong requirement exchange channel and basic technological support for the
for automation and intelligence technology in smart warehouse system. Equipment automation and process
logistics. In our opinion, smart warehouses are the integration are the two pillars of the warehouse. Equipment
collection of smart technologies in warehouse section
and a series of operations management practices to make
warehouses operate in a “smarter” way. Smart warehouses
have developed into an integral of cutting-edge tech-
nologies, warehouse processes, and warehouse operations
management. The basic characteristics of smart ware-
houses can be classified into the following perspectives:
Information interconnection. Information intercon-
nection involves the top-level design of smart warehouses.
It is the base of smart warehouses and operational
management. Based on technology derived from the
Internet of Things (IoT), cyber–physical systems (CPS),
and other emerging technology, information flow can be
shared and processed by numerous logistics nodes and thus
produce extra values.
Equipment automation. Equipment automation
describes the characteristics of smart warehouse at
strategic and tactical levels. Automation is the technical Fig. 3 The conceptual framework of a smart warehouse.
Lu ZHEN & Haolin LI. A literature review of smart warehouse operations management 3
automation aims to achieve automatic operation through 2 Research methodology

the design and deployment of automation equipment, and
the implementation of proper strategies. It provides support 2.1 Insights from previous literature reviews
at strategic and tactical levels. Process integration aims to
control and coordinate various warehouse processes and In the last two decades, several literature reviews have
technologies. It provides support at the operational level. discussed some related topics of warehouse operations
Environmental sustainability is the beam of warehouses, management, which may provide some insights to our
which is supported by interconnection, automation, and research. To justify the research scope of “smart warehouse
integration. These four perspectives, namely, information operations management” and derive the need for the
interconnection, equipment automation, process integra- content analysis, we summarize previous reviews that may
tion, and environmental sustainability, build the conceptual relate to our research. The related literature reviews are
framework of smart warehouses. Warehouse operations then classified into two groups: Literature reviews before
management is the theme running through the four and after 2015, respectively. Table 1 summarizes these
perspectives. literature reviews.
The remainder of this review is organized as follows.
Insights from previous literature reviews and detailed 2.1.1 Literature reviews before 2015
research methodology are proposed in Section 2.
Section 3 presents the interconnection aspect by applying Given that smart warehouses have emerged in recent years,
IoT and CPS in warehouse design and control. Section 4 the earlier published reviews discussed less about current
reviews articles related to strategic and tactical decisions warehouse development and smart technologies. But the
and provides an overview of smart warehouses’ automa- earlier reviews can still bring insights into the basic
tion technology. Section 5 proposes the process integration concepts related to warehouse operations management. In
of smart warehouses and classifies articles according to Rouwenhorst et al. (2000)’s review, warehouse design
different operational problems. Section 6 extracts the problems and models are presented at strategic, tactical,
environmental sustainability issue from warehouse and operational levels. Gu et al. (2007) present a review of
operations management to propose a green warehouse warehouse operation planning based on the classification
roadmap. The last Section summarizes the current research according to the basic warehouse functions, including
status and proposes some open research questions for receiving, storage, order picking, and shipping. Gu et al.
future research. (2010) provide some comments on warehouse design
Table 1 Summary of previous literature reviews
Review article Topic System/Concept
Rouwenhorst et al. (2000) Warehouse design and control Manual warehouse
Gu et al. (2007) Warehouse operation Manual warehouse
Gu et al. (2010) Warehouse design and evaluation Manual warehouse
de Koster et al. (2007) Warehouse design and control about order picking Manual warehouse
Roodbergen and Vis (2009) AS/RS design and operation AS/RS
Gagliardi et al. (2012) AS/RS performance evaluation AS/RS
Ben-Daya et al. (2017) IoT and supply chain management IoT-enabled supply chain
Manavalan and Jayakrishna (2019) IoT in sustainable supply chain management IoT-enabled supply chain
Winkelhaus and Grosse (2020) Logistics 4.0, IoT, CPS Logistics 4.0
Boysen and Stephan (2016) AS/RS single crane scheduling AS/RS
Jaghbeer et al. (2020) Automated order picking systems and their design and evaluation Automated warehouse
Custodio and Machado (2019) Flexible automation in warehouses Automated warehouse
Fottner et al. (2021) Research framework of autonomous intralogistics systems Autonomous intralogistics systems
Glock et al. (2021) Assistive devices for manual materials handling Assistive devices
Boysen et al. (2019) Design and operation of e-commerce warehouse E-commerce warehouse
Azadeh et al. (2019a) System analysis, design, and operation of robotized Robotic warehouse
and automated warehouse systems
Fragapane et al. (2021) Application, planning, and control of AMR AMR
Bartolini et al. (2019) Green warehousing Green warehouse
This paper Smart warehouse operations management Smart warehouse
based on the following warehouse design problems: systems. Glock et al. (2021) provide a review of technical
Overall structure, sizing and dimensioning, equipment assistive devices for manual materials handling. Papers
selection, operation strategy selection, and department that discuss assistive devices on the warehousing system
layout. de Koster et al. (2007) stress the importance of the are identified in their systematic literature review.
order picking process. Optimization problems related to New warehouse concepts and applications have been
layout design, storage assignment, routing, order batching, derived in recent years. These concepts may be similar to
and zoning are reviewed. smart warehouses we characterize. Boysen et al. (2019)
Automated Storage and Retrieval System (AS/RS) has survey relevant literature about warehouse systems for
attracted much attention from earlier reviews. Roodbergen e-commerce warehouses. Warehouse systems need to cope
and Vis (2009) provide an overview of the AS/RS with the requirements of e-commerce, including small
literature for a range of issues, including physical design, orders, large assortment, tight delivery schedules, and
storage assignment, batching, dwell-point location sequen- varying workloads. The warehouse systems adopted in
cing, and performance evaluation. Various models for e-commerce warehouses are investigated in their review.
AS/RS performance evaluation are surveyed in Gagliardi Azadeh et al. (2019a) review the developments of
et al. (2012)’s work. Analytical models and simulations are robotized and automated warehouse systems. Research
the two types of models commonly used in research. on different warehousing systems is categorized into three
categories: System analysis, design optimization, and
2.1.2 Literature reviews after 2015 operational planning and control. The systems identified
in this review are essential for warehouse automation. The
Recent reviews focus more on the emerging warehouse integrated models and systems are mentioned as the
technologies and new developing trends. IoT, Industry 4.0, direction of future research for established systems.
and other emerging technologies influence the way of Fragapane et al. (2021) review the application of
information exchange in warehouses. Ben-Daya et al. autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in intralogistics and
(2017) reveal the role of the IoT and its impact on supply the corresponding planning and control problem. AMRs
chain management. Radio frequency identification (RFID) are industrial robots that evolve from AGVs and have been
tags are the major IoT technology studied in previous widely used in warehousing and other intralogistics
warehousing research. Manavalan and Jayakrishna (2019) operations. For the sustainability topic in warehouses,
review IoT’s role in achieving sustainable goals in supply Bartolini et al. (2019) provide an exhausted macroscopic
chain management. The importance of digitalization and review about green warehousing. Existing literature about
the influence of IoT in the overall supply chain manage- green warehousing is categorized into three macro-themes:
ment are analyzed. The criteria for achieving business Green warehouse management, the environmental impact
readiness for Industry 4.0 transformation are concluded. of warehouse building, and energy saving in warehousing.
Winkelhaus and Grosse (2020) propose a systematic To some extent, the concept of smart warehouses
literature review for Logistics 4.0. The application of proposed in our review may overlap technical perspectives
IoT, CPS, and other technologies related to Logistics 4.0 with the abovementioned reviews. Most of the existing
are summarized in the review. reviews define and classify their research scope from the
The rapid development of automation technology has technical aspect. In other words, previous studies usually
dramatically improved the automation level of warehouse focus on a specific type of warehouse equipment or
systems. In this development process, different concepts technology. In our opinion, smart warehouse is not limited
related to automated warehouses have emerged. Boysen to warehouse concepts like e-commerce warehouse and
and Stephan (2016) classify single crane scheduling green warehouse. Smart warehouses should be a broader
problems in AS/RS in three perspectives: Layout, order concept that concerns leading warehouse technology and
characteristics, and objectives, and then survey crane applications and intrinsic principles of warehouse opera-
scheduling problems. Jaghbeer et al. (2020) present an tions management. This broad meaning offers a wide space
analysis of the literature related to automated picking for the research of smart warehouse operations manage-
systems and identify and study the link between design and ment, which could be the most promising trend in
performance. Custodio and Machado (2019) discuss warehouse management. We develop a novel review
flexible automation in warehouses and construct a frame- framework based on the basic characteristics proposed
work for designing flexible automated warehouses. Fottner above. Instead of classifying literature by technical aspect,
et al. (2021) investigate the definition and research the classification and analysis of literature in our review
framework of autonomous intralogistics systems, which are based on the characteristics of smart warehouses.
enable self-contained, decentralized planning, execution, This classification framework provides a solution that
control, and optimization of internal material and informa- covers both technical and operational aspects of smart
tion flows through cooperation and interaction with other warehouse operations management. This review’s main
systems and with humans. A typical autonomous ware- innovation and contribution is that we provide a
house system is a segment of autonomous intralogistics comprehensive literature review for smart warehouse
operations management based on a novel review frame- Step 3: Retrieve samples of potentially relevant
work that reveals the existing inner links of smart literature.
warehouse operation. We expect that the novel framework Web of Science Core Collection is used as the database
of our review could provide some new insights into smart in this review. To implement these criteria defined in
warehouse operations management. Step 2, we restrict the period within the years range from
2010 to 2020 and select the options SCIE and SSCI in the
2.2 Literature search and selection strategy search setting. We use the initial keywords set gathered
from the topics of previous literature reviews as the starter
To conduct literature search and selection methodology of the search. The papers in the initial searching results are
systematically and transparently, we follow the guidelines analyzed and some keywords are extracted from the initial
presented by Durach et al. (2017). The sample is generated search result to refine the keywords list. The refined
through the following steps: keywords set are listed in Table 2.
Step 1: Define the research scope. Step 4: Select pertinent literature.
According to the topic, research on integration decision In this step, the inclusion and exclusion criteria listed in
and optimization of smart warehouses is reviewed in this Step 2 are applied. Relevant literature is selected and
research. Based on the previous research, the research classified according to the review framework. A total of
scope could be refined as suggested in Section 1. 657 publications were selected.
Step 2: Determine the required characteristics for Step 5: Synthesize literature.
primary studies. Literature is synthesized and examined in the following
Based on Step 1, the inclusion and exclusion criteria sections.
should be established to determine if an article is relevant
to the review: 2.3 Result analysis
(1) Research related to smart warehouse operations
management can be included. 2.3.1 The trend of publications with time
(2) Research related to warehouse operations manage-
ment can be included. Research focusing on supply chain To analyze the research trend of smart warehouses, we
management, inventory management, and warehouse collect the data of publication distribution from the search
location should be excluded. result. Figure 4 shows an increase in the number of
(3) Research topics that are not relevant to the logistics publications since 2010. These results indicate the growing
section (e.g., data warehouse and knowledge warehouse) research interest in different aspects of smart warehouses.
should be excluded. The general trend of the publications is on the rise. The
(4) Research in English with a publication date from
January 2015 to December 2020 can be retained.
(5) Research published in high-impact journals that
meet all following criteria can be included to ensure focus
on the research topic:
a) The journals should be peer-reviewed.
b) The journals should be cited by the Science Citation
Index Expanded (SCIE) or Social Sciences Citation Index
(SSCI) database.
c) According to the 2019 Journal Citation Reports (JCR),
the journals should rank in the first quartile in the related
JCR category.
(6) The research with a document type of article or Fig. 4 Number of publications with keywords related to smart
review can be included. warehouse.
Table 2 Keywords set

Category Initial keywords Keywords added by refinement
Warehouse fundamental Warehouse, design, operation Intralogistics
Automated warehouse facilities Automated, automation AGV, robot, storage, retrieval
Information IoT, CPS RFID, warehouse management system (WMS)
Warehouse operation Picking, retrieving, scheduling, batching, routing Conflict, congestion, service
Sustainable warehouse Sustain Carbon, energy, green
Excluded keywords Manual, inventory, data warehouse, knowledge warehouse
emergence and implementation of new warehousing time of co-occurrence of two keywords. To illustrate the
technologies have contributed to the increasing trend. We evolution of the research topics, we divide the selected
observe that articles published in 2015–2020 focus more articles into two parts: The article published in 2010–2014
on emerging equipment, such as RMFS, autonomous and the article published in 2015–2019. The keywords co-
vehicle storage and retrieval system (AVS/RS), and occurrence analysis of articles in the two parts is conducted
shuttle-based storage and retrieval system (SBS/RS). separately.
Furthermore, a significant boost is observed in the number Figures 5 and 6 show the main research topics of articles
of articles related to warehouse operations management published in 2010–2014 and 2015–2019, respectively.
and optimization from 2018 to 2020. The number of Both networks have three clusters. The green clusters show
articles published in 2020 is almost twice the number of the fundamentals of warehouse research, such as the basic
articles published in 2018. The increasing trend of the concept of optimization, system, and management. The
number of articles shows that the concern on the operations core of the red clusters is the warehouse design. Some
management and optimization of warehouses has signifi- design concepts are included in the clusters, for example,
cantly increased, reflecting the rapid development and travel time, performance, and some warehouse systems
growing need for warehousing systems. such as AS/RS. The blue clusters mainly include the
warehouse activities and decision problems of warehouse
2.3.2 Keywords co-occurrence analysis research, such as storage and picking.
By comparing the two networks, some keyword changes
To reveal the internal relationships and classify the main are observed. First, design, storage, and picking are the
topics of existing research, we conduct keywords co- main topics in warehouse research. Various studies have
occurrence analysis by VOSviewer. In the figure of been undertaken on these topics. Second, the concern of
keywords co-occurrence network, each keyword repre- new technologies is reflected in the analysis. The
sents a topic or concept in warehouse research and is emergence of SBS/RS, robots, and other novel warehouse
shown as nodes in the figure. The arcs between different systems raises new research problems for researchers.
keywords indicate the co-occurrence between the two Third, the concern on warehouse operations management
topics or concepts. The node size represents the occurrence has been increased in these years. This increase can be
time of a keyword, and the thickness of an arc means the directly concluded by the emergence of the node
Fig. 5 Clusters of keywords co-occurrence (2010–2014).

Fig. 6 Clusters of keywords co-occurrence (2015–2020).
“operation” and the node “assignment”. Meanwhile, the moving distances of warehouse resources and can also
attention to some specific issues, such as layout design, be used to calculate the corresponding cost and energy
aisle configuration, and class-based storage, has been consumption.
weakened. The complex links among keywords indicate Queuing network models are used for the modeling of
that the integrated research of some operations manage- complex systems. Warehouse systems can be modeled as
ment problems becomes increasingly popular. multistage systems using queuing networks. The storage/
retrieving tasks, which are usually referred to as the
2.3.3 Analysis of different research methodologies customers of the queuing theory, may queue in somewhere
of the system to wait to be processed by facilities or
From the existing research on warehouse operations resources of the warehouse system. Once a task is
management, four main research methodologies can be completed, it will leave the system, and the resources
concluded: Travel time models, queuing network models, occupied by the task will be released to serve another task.
mathematical programming, and simulation. Queuing network models provide complements to make
Travel time models and queuing network models are up for the shortcomings of travel time models. Queuing
commonly used models for the evaluation of warehouse network models can obtain analytical solutions by the
systems. Travel time refers to the time that a resource or derivation of queuing theory and showing productivity in
item moves from a location to another, which is one of the the comparison of operational strategies in warehouse
most concerning indicators in warehouse systems. Travel strategic, tactical, and operational decisions. However, the
time models can be derived based on the operating modeling process of travel time models and queuing
mechanisms of warehouse systems. Using travel time network models relies on system operations assumptions.
models, warehouse operators can easily calculate the Sometimes the strong assumptions may distort the model
system travel times and throughputs. Travel time models and reduce the usability of the solutions and conclusions
can be used as the basis of simulation and queuing obtained by the models.
networks. However, travel time models have difficulty in Mathematical programming builds linear programming,
evaluating the interaction of different factors, such as the nonlinear programming, or mixed-integer linear program-
serial and parallel processing of different tasks and the ming models for warehouse optimization. It aims to
accompanying resource occupation problem. Queuing provide the right choice and give detailed instructions for
network models are applied to characterize these complex warehouse operations problems. Mathematical program-
interactions. Similarly, travel distance models could obtain ming is used to obtain operational decisions, such as order
processing, job scheduling, and resource assignment. For 2.4 Summarization of reviewed literature
strategic and tactical decisions, mathematical program-
ming can also be used to optimize warehouse layout design To establish a comprehensive classification of the reviewed
and storage assignment. By conducting sensitivity analy- literature related to smart warehouse operations manage-
sis, the impact of different strategic and tactical decisions ment, we summarize the reviewed literature in Table 3.
on the model’s objective can be tested and concluded. A
mathematical model is built by clarifying first the decision
problem and then the objective need. Constraints depict the 3 Information interconnection
internal operating principles of system operation. Mathe-
matical programming is usually applied in the decision of In the last decades, CPS and IoT, which emerged as the
deterministic problems. Some stochastic problems can also extension of computer networks into every device and
be modeled by stochastic programming. object, have become essential supporters for enabling the
The mathematical programming model can be solved by interconnection of logistics activities. CPS and IoT turn the
applying some commercial solvers. However, most ware- ideal concept into a reality that goods, logistics facilities,
house operations problems are non-deterministic poly- and logistics elements are connected and communicated
nomial (NP)-hard, which means that commercial solvers (Ben-Daya et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2019).
cannot be used. Some metaheuristic algorithms are In today’s warehouse practice, RFID, warehouse manage-
employed to obtain near-optimal solutions in a short ment system (WMS), augmented reality (AR), reinforced
time. The common metaheuristic algorithms employed in learning, and other emerging technologies enhance the
warehouse operations research include genetic algorithm, interconnection between different processes and entities
simulated annealing algorithm, particle swarm optimiza- (Dou et al., 2015; Bottani and Vignali, 2019; Sartoretti
tion algorithm, and neighborhood algorithm. Some et al., 2019). Interconnection technology provides ways to
researchers apply exact algorithms, such as branch and establish warehouse information collection and exchange,
bound and dynamic programming, to obtain exact which could be a leading factor for future warehouse
solutions. development. IoT and CPS technologies, including Radio
Warehouse systems can also be modeled by simulation. frequency, pick to light, and pick by voice, are commonly
Simulation models can depict the system reality and used in the warehouse picking process. The brief
operation mechanism in high accuracy to adapt to various introduction on interconnection technology could bring
warehouse systems. Simulation models are often used to some insights for a better understanding of the smart
compare and demonstrate the proposed strategies, algo- warehouse. To formulate a way of choosing suited
rithms, or methods. When modeling a warehouse system interconnection technology, Hassan et al. (2015) identify
by queuing networks or mathematical programming is the affecting factors of warehouse automatic identification
complex, simulation can provide a possible way to obtain technology through a literature review. The major affecting
the solutions. However, the conceptualization and design factors for selecting automatic identification technology
of the simulation model may require lots of work. The include organizational, operational, structural, resources,
solving process of the simulation model could be time- external, environmental, and technological factors.
consuming. Besides, simulation models can hardly obtain RFID is a technology for automatic object identification
optimal solutions or near-optimal solutions for some and data collection based on radio waves. Among the
specific warehouse operations problem. interconnection technologies, RFID is considered a choice
From the reviewed literature, we can find that research- for positioning, identifying, information interaction, and
ers are more inclined to use travel time models and queuing warehouse management in the smart warehouse. Its
network models for analysis of the strategical decision of strengths include non-contact sensing ability, high flexi-
warehouse operations management. Some algorithms are bility, configurability, high efficiency, and low cost (Tao
developed as parts of imposed strategies or assignment et al., 2014). Giusti et al. (2019) work on a generalized
rules. To deal with the operational decision problems, performance comparison model of different RFID imple-
mathematical programming models are more preferred. mentations. The benefit related to informatization on
For most operational decisions, heuristic algorithms are warehouse performance has been investigated. A proba-
developed to work out detailed operational plans effi- bilistic risk assessment model is applied to identify and
ciently. Simulation models can be applied to a variety of quantify the delay value in transfer time.
decision problems. When using travel time models or The application of RFID in smart warehouses mainly
queuing network models in research, simulation models focuses on inventory tracking, localization, and warehouse
are often used to validate the derived models. Travel time management. Information exchange, which is the main
models, travel distance models, and queuing network function of the RFID system, significantly impacts the
models can provide essential inputs like travel time or warehouses’ efficient communication. Information accu-
distance in simulation models. racy is essential for managing warehouse information
Table 3 Summary of the reviewed literature
Category Article Level Warehouse system Decision problem Topics Method
Strategic Tactical Operational TM QN MP AL SI
Movement Yang et al. (2015b) √ Compact AS/RS Rack design Acceleration and deceleration of √
characteristics S/R machine
Wang et al. (2015) √ √ SBS/RS Task scheduling Movement characteristics of √ √ GA
shuttles and lifts
Lamballais et al. √ RMFS Performance evaluation Realistic robot movement √ √
(2017)
Command cycle Xu et al. (2015) √ AS/RS Travel time models Quadruple command cycle √
Salah et al. (2017) √ Wire-driven robots Travel time models DC for random and class-based √ √
storage
Lerher (2018) √ AVS/RS Travel time models DC √ √
Liu et al. (2018) √ Split-platform Travel time models DC with a dedicated lift per rack √ √
AS/RS and a dedicated lift per job type
Battery management Zou et al. (2018b) √ RMFS Battery recovery method evaluation Battery charging and swapping √ √ √
of robots and AGVs
Kabir and Suzuki √ AGV System flexibility and battery AGVs battery management √
(2018) management
Cheng et al. √ Mobile robots Scheduling of mobile chargers Mobile chargers, robot charging √ √ HA √
(2021) strategy
Handling speed Zou et al. (2017) √ RMFS Assignment rule of workstations Handling speeds of workstations √ √ NS √
to robots
Storage assignment Guo et al. (2016) √ √ Forklift warehouse Impact of storage space on Storage policies √ DP
storage policy
Ramtin and √ √ AS/RS Product to pick position assignments Demand curves of products √ HA √
Pazour (2015)
Pan et al. (2015) √ Pick-and-pass Storage space assignment Workload balance of each GA √
systems picking zone
Manzini et al. √ Storage systems Storage capacity, storage assign- Product life cycle √
(2015) ment, and optional subsystems
selection
Yuan et al. (2019) √ RMFS Storage assignment Velocity-based storage policy √ HA √
Lu ZHEN & Haolin LI. A literature review of smart warehouse operations management
Yu et al. (2015) √ √ Warehousing Optimal number and boundaries Class-based storage √ HA √

system of storage classes
Zaerpour et al. √ Puzzle-based Configuration of two-class-based Class-based storage √ HA
(2017b) compact storage storage
system
Zaerpour et al. √ Puzzle-based CS Two-class-based storage assignment Class-based storage √
(2017c)
9
(Continued)
10
Kress et al. (2017) √ Storage systems Stock Keeping Units partition Dedicated storage √ HA, BB
problem
Zaerpour et al. √ Compact AS/RS Storage assignment for fast retrieval Shared storage √ HA
(2015)
Zou et al. (2018a) √ Robotic compact Evaluation of storage policies Dedicated storage, √ √ √
storage system shared storage
Order processing Man et al. (2021) √ AS/RS S/R machine sequencing Sequencing √ ε, GA,
HA
Wang et al. √ SBS/RS Retrieval task sequencing Sequencing √ AC, TS,
(2020c) SA
Emde et al. (2020) √ AS/RS Single batching machine scheduling Batching √ BD
Foumani et al. √ Robotic AS/RS Sequence of orders, Sequencing √ CE
(2018) sequence of items
Gagliardi et al. √ AS/RS Globally sequencing approaches Sequencing HA √
(2015)
Nicolas et al. √ Vertical lift Order batching Batching √ SA, TS,
(2018) modules GA
Lenoble et al. √ Carousels Fixed and rolling batching Batching √ √ HA
(2021)
Xie et al. (2021) √ RMFS Assignment of pods and orders to Splitting √ HA √
Front. Eng. Manag.
picking stations
Jiang et al. (2021) √ AGV Order batching and batch assignment Splitting, batching √ CG, HA
Boywitz et al. √ A-frame system Replenishment problem and Replenishment, sequencing √ GR, LS √
(2019) picking order sequencing
Jiang et al. (2020) √ RMFS Picking-replenishment Replenishment √ VNS √
synchronization
Retrieval location Yang et al. √ SBS/RS Joint location and sequence Location and sequence √ TS
assignment and (2015a) assignment
scheduling
Heshmati et al. √ Crane-operated Location assignment and multi-crane Location and scheduling √ HA
(2019) warehouse scheduling
Yang et al. √ SBS/RS Location and sequence assignment Location and sequence √ VNS
(2015c)
Boysen et al. √ RMFS Order batching and sequencing Rack assignment and batching, √ SA
(2017) sequencing
Weidinger et al. √ √ RMFS Storage assignment and rack parking Storage assignment, rack √ ALNS
(2018) optimization assignment
(Continued)
Gharehgozli and √ RMFS Robot scheduling with multiple Robot scheduling, √ ALNS
Zaerpour (2020) locations of pods rack assignment
Resource allocation Gong et al. (2021) √ RMFS Order fulfillment Differentiated customer classes Markov
and differentiated model
service
He et al. (2018) √ √ AGV Storage assignment with differen- Differentiated service policy √ √ AM, SA
tiated probabilistic queueing strategy
Wauters et al. √ Miniload AS/RS Location assignment and storage Prioritized waiting time √ HA
(2016) and retrieval scheduling
Yuan and Gong √ √ RMFS Optimal number and the velocity Robots pooled strategy √ √ √
(2017) of robots
Roy et al. (2019) √ √ RMFS Comparison of dedicated and pooled Robots pooled strategy √ √ √
zone assignment strategy
Blocking Lerher (2016) √ √ SBS/RS Travel time model Rearrangement of blocking totes √
rearrangement
Xu et al. (2016) √ √ AS/RS Travel time model, optimal Rearrangement of blocking totes √ √
fill-grade factor decision
Chen et al. (2015) √ √ Flow-rack AS/RS Travel time model Restorage of blocking unit-loads √ √
Boywitz and √ √ CS Robust storage assignments Block prevention by storage √ LA √
Boysen (2018) assignment
Chen et al. (2016) √ √ Flow-rack AS/RS Retrieval sequencing Block prevention by storage √ HA
assignment
Conflict-free routing Roy et al. (2015b) √ √ AVS/RS Congestion effects evaluation Estimation of congestion delay √ √
Zhang et al. √ AGV Collision-free routing Collision classifications and PA
(2018) solutions
Lee et al. (2020) √ AGV AGV scheduling in narrow aisle Aisle access policies √ NS
warehouses
Han and Yu √ Robot Diversified-path database-driven Collision free path planning PA
(2020) multi-robot path planning
Małopolski (2018) √ AGV Conflict-free operation Collision and deadlock PA √
prevention
Lu ZHEN & Haolin LI. A literature review of smart warehouse operations management
Thanos et al. √ √ Vehicles Dispatch and conflict-free routing Conflict-free routing HA

(2019) with storage allocation
Zhao et al. √ AGV Dynamic resource reservation-based Collision avoidance HA
(2020b) method for collision avoidance
Saidi-Mehrabad √ AGV Job shop scheduling and conflict- Conflict-free routing √ AC
et al. (2015) free routing
11
12
(Continued)
Digani et al. √ AGV Coordinating a fleet of AGVs AGV coordination HA
(2015)
Draganjac et al. √ AGV Decentralized control of AGV fleets AGV coordination HA
(2016)
Digani et al. √ AGV Centralized AGV control strategy AGV coordination √ HA √
(2019)
Yoshitake et al. √ RMFS Real-time holonic scheduling Holonic scheduling HA √
(2019)
Sustainable ware- Meneghetti and √ Refrigerated Rack configuration, surfaces, and Energy consumption √
house strategic and Monti (2015) AS/RS volumes of the cold cell
tactical decision
Tappia et al. √ AVS/RS, AS/RS Comparison of automated ware- Energy consumption √
(2015) housing system
Gružauskas et al. √ Autonomous Energy and economic impact of Energy consumption √
(2018) vehicles autonomous vehicles
Yetkin Ekren et al. √ SBS/RS Time, variance, and energy-related Energy consumption and √ √
(2018) performance estimations regeneration
Yetkin Ekren √ AVS/RS Optimization of system design Energy consumption and √ √
(2021) regeneration
Zaerpour et al. √ Puzzle-based CS System evaluation and optimization Energy consumption √ √
(2017a)
Front. Eng. Manag.
Li et al. (2020) √ RMFS Storage assignment Energy consumption √ √

Roozbeh Nia et al. √ AS/RS Dynamic sequencing of storage and Carbon emission √ GA
(2017) retrieval
Ene et al. (2016) √ Picker-to-part Batching and picking optimization Energy consumption GA
warehouse
Habibi Tostani √ AS/RS Crane scheduling Energy consumption √ CC
et al. (2020)
Hahn-Woernle √ AS/RS Power-load management and Power-load management √
and Gunthner its impact
(2018)
Basso et al. (2019) √ Electric vehicles Vehicle scheduling Battery charging, √ GR
electricity price
Notes: TM: travel time/distance model; QN: queuing network model; MP: mathematical programming; AL: algorithm; SI: simulation; CS: compact storage system; S/R: storage/retrieval; ε: ε-constraint method; GA: genetic
algorithm; NS: neighborhood search algorithm; VNS: variable neighborhood search algorithm; DP: dynamic programming algorithm; BB: branch and bound algorithm; AC: ant colony algorithm; TS: tabu search algorithm;
SA: simulated annealing algorithm; BD: Benders decomposition algorithm; CE: cross-entropy method; HA: heuristic algorithm; GR: greedy algorithm; ALNS: adaptive large neighborhood search; AM: alternating
minimization algorithm; PA: path-planning algorithm; LA: left-edge algorithm; CC: cooperative coevolutionary algorithm; CG: column generation algorithm; LS: local search procedure.
exchange efficiency and effectiveness (Zhong et al., 2015). equipment. Automation is the technology used to process
Object localization based on RFID technology serves as tasks with minimal manual labor. It changes warehouse
a major function of RFID warehouse management. One of operation in many aspects, including increased efficiency,
the most challenging issues in RFID-based applications is agile reaction to customer orders, and a significant
the acquisition of location information of either the tags or reduction in labor costs and errors. Automated parts-to-
readers. Thus, RFID-based localization (especially three- picker order picking systems have become popular for
dimensional localization) has been an active research topic warehouse operations (Tappia et al., 2019). The increase in
(Lu et al., 2018). The use of tracking inventory is also the application of automation facilities is significant;
investigated by researchers (Shahzad and Liu, 2015; Zhou consequently, finding optimal strategies for the design
et al., 2017; Mo and Li, 2019; Gareis et al., 2021). Missing and control of automated warehouse systems becomes
tags searching is another RFID object location and more challenging with the growth and penetration of
inventory tracking application (Chen et al., 2017). modern computer technology (Amato et al., 2005).
IoT and CBS technologies can also influence the way of When applying automation technology to warehouse
warehouse design and operation. RFID tags are attached to design and operation, exploring the internal relationship of
products at the item level instead of the pallet level, strategic and tactical decisions along with some system
providing a way to support warehouse storage assignment characteristics is important. This section will go through
with higher precision (Choy et al., 2017). RFID can various automated equipment used in smart warehouse and
provide infrastructure for collaborative warehouse order figure out some system characteristics that can be used as
fulfillment of decentralized management to improve important factors of strategic and tactical decisions in
system reaction capabilities (Reaidy et al., 2015). The smart warehouses.
real-time information exchange and collection of RFID can AS/RS is a widely equipped warehousing system in
provide a decision support tool for order fulfillment (Lam warehouses and distribution centers for automatic material
et al., 2015). Furthermore, the energy-saving improvement handling with high speed and accuracy (see Fig. 7). It is
of RFID could be a new point for the warehouse system. the combination of automatic equipment and correspond-
In some research about conflict-free routing in the ing control policies (Lee and Schaefer, 1996). Although
robotized warehouse, CPS is used for information AS/RS has been widely adopted for years, the research on
exchange and pre-detection of potential collisions. Colli- its operational decision is still of great value, which can
sions can be detected by comparing the occupancy of the provide basic references for various warehouse technolo-
time window, and some corresponding collision avoidance gies in smart warehouses. Today, AS/RS has evolved into
strategies can be developed for conflict-free routing (Lee an efficient system with many variants, including AVS/RS
et al., 2019; Keung et al., 2020). (Lerher et al., 2021), SBS/RS (Zhao et al., 2020a; Yetkin
WMS is a computerized database application widely Ekren and Akpunar, 2021), compact AS/RS (Hao et al.,
used by the logistics section for warehouse control and 2015; Xu et al., 2018; Kumawat and Roy, 2021), and
optimization. A common WMS includes warehouse puzzle-based storage and retrieval system (Mirzaei et al.,
processes including receiving, storage, order picking, 2017; Yalcin et al., 2019). The system configuration of
packing, and shipping. IoT provides ways for information AS/RS and its variants can be affected by many factors,
collection and exchange for WMS. The implementation of such as the configuration of rack (Yetkin Ekren, 2017),
IoT-based WMS can also facilitate warehouse operation. aisle (Roy et al., 2015a; Manzini et al., 2016), cross-aisle
Qiu et al. (2015) introduce a framework of IoT-enabled (Tutam and White, 2019a), space (Derhami et al., 2019),
Supply Hub in Industrial Park (SHIP). The innovations of tier (Tappia et al., 2017), shape (Tappia et al., 2017; Tutam
IoT-enabled SHIP include different information sharing and White, 2019b), depot (Gharehgozli et al., 2017;
levels, information structure, and decision-making tools. Gharehgozli et al., 2021), shuttles (Ha and Chae, 2019),
Lee et al. (2018) propose an IoT-based WMS integrated and pick position (Liu et al., 2021). Some tactical policies
with the fuzzy logic technique. Based on the case data, the
IoT-based WMS shows its competitiveness in improving
warehouse productivity, picking accuracy, efficiency, and
robustness in order variability.
4 Equipment automation
Warehousing is often seen as a labor-intensive activity.
Managing the traditional manual warehouse has become a
critical problem for performance improvement with great
complexity (Yu and de Koster, 2009). This problem is dealt Fig. 7 A typical AS/RS (accessed via daifuku-logisticssolutions.
with by equipping many warehouses with automation com/en/product/asrs/index.html).
can also take effect on the system design and performance, minimize the pickers’ travel times and distances (Ghelichi
such as storage policy (Ang and Lim, 2019), dwell point and Kilaru, 2021). Two types of warehouse robots are
policy (Yu and Yu, 2019), and input/output point policy mentioned in Lee and Murray (2019)’s research. One type
(Xu et al., 2020). Travel time is a key indicator to evaluate of warehouse robots can grasp items from the shelf, and
the system efficiency, which is measured by the maximum another type of robots can deliver items from the picker to
of the isolated horizontal and vertical travel times (Chen the workstation. Robots can also perform sorting of the
et al., 2020) and is thus applied in warehouse strategic and picked items (Fager et al., 2021).
tactical design (Epp et al., 2017).
AGV is a driverless material handling equipment for 4.1 Strategic decision
horizontal material movement (see Fig. 8). AGV-assisted
order picking can adapt to order picking of small-sized With respect to the travel time in strategic warehouse
items and heavy items. Based on AGV technology, AMR design, the system characteristics cannot be neglected
and robotized warehouse systems are developed to assist or since they will directly influence the system’s overall
replace human labor in product picking and handling. performance. The specific characteristics can be different
AGV-based warehouse systems and robotized warehouse in different warehouse systems. In this part, we will go
systems are increasingly applied in warehouses. through the effect of system characteristics, including
movement characteristics, command cycle, battery char-
ging for RMFS and AGV systems, and the efficiency of
the picking station.
In AS/RS, the movement characteristics are usually
referred to as acceleration/deceleration and the speed of the
storage/retrieval (S/R) machine, which can directly
influence the actual travel time, especially in the
circumstance of frequent start and stop. Based on the
consideration of acceleration/deceleration, the speed
profile is an important influence factor of optimal storage
rack design (Yang et al., 2015b). The acceleration/
deceleration of shuttles and lifts significantly impacts
task scheduling (Wang et al., 2015). The robot driving
behavior can influence RMFS design. Lamballais Tessen-
sohn et al. (2017) work out an evaluation model addressing
warehouse layout aspects of RMFS considering robots
Fig. 8 AGV-assisted order picking (accessed via directindustry. driving behavior. The location of the workstations can
com/prod/crown/product-9227-1769803.html). influence maximum order throughput, while changing the
length-to-width ratio of storage area has limited influence
RMFS, or so-called KIVA system, is an automated, on order throughput.
parts-to-picker picking system in which a fleet of robots Command cycle is a concept that defines the operation
can move racks (inventory pods) with products toward pattern of warehouse systems. Two types of command
picking workstations (Wang et al., 2020b). It shows greater cycle are commonly used: Single command cycle (SC) and
flexibility and productivity through its flexible layout and dual command cycle (DC) (Pan and Wang, 1996). In DC
hardware installation (Bozer and Aldarondo, 2018). The operation mode, storage and retrieval operations are
key decisions in the RMFS design include the number of combined within a movement. DC will result in better
robots, the shape of the forward area, the number of pods performance in most cases. Other operation modes, such as
per stock keeping unit (SKU), the ratio of the number of the quadruple command cycle (Xu et al., 2015), have also
picking stations and replenishment stations, and the been analyzed in previous research. Some works have
replenishment level (Aldarondo and Bozer, 2020; Lam- evaluated the influence of command cycles on system
ballais Tessensohn et al., 2020). The travel time and configurations (Salah et al., 2017; Lerher, 2018). For some
operation cycle of robots in RMFS are investigated by special variants of AS/RS, the command cycles could have
Wang et al. (2020a). Other types of robots for parts-to- different meanings. Split-platform automated storage and
picker picking modes, such as cable-driven parallel robots retrieval systems (SP-AS/RSs) are used for handling
(Zhang et al., 2020), rack-climbing robots (Azadeh et al., overly heavy loads like containers. Liu et al. (2018)
2019b), and robot with transport and lifting capabilities study two DC expected travel time models for SP-AS/RS:
(Zou et al., 2018a), are also powerful equipment in smart An SP-AS/RS model with a dedicated lift per rack and
warehouses. another model with a dedicated lift per job type.
Warehouse robots in the picker-to-parts mode can In RMFS and AGV-assist picking system, robots and
perform collaborative picking with human pickers to AGVs are battery-powered. The battery life is limited to
certain working hours, which depends on battery capacity into disjoint subsets aiming to minimize the number of
and working intensity. Once the battery exhausts, it needs groups accessed in retrieving process and show its
to be charged or swapped. According to the research applicability in storage systems with a dedicated storage
finding of Zou et al. (2018b), the common battery policy.
management strategies include battery swapping, battery A shared storage policy allows multiple products to
charging strategy with a plug-in, and inductive charging of share one storage rack. Retrieval time and storage
the battery. Among the three strategies, inductive charging utilization can be improved through shared storage
is the best strategy based on system throughput time. From (Zaerpour et al., 2015). According to Zou et al. (2018a)’s
the cost perspective, battery swapping costs more than study, in robotic compact storage and retrieval systems,
other strategies. Another research point for battery dedicated storage policy performs better than shared policy
management is the duration of battery charging. More in terms of throughput time. In contrast, the shared storage
AGVs’ productive hours can be achieved by reducing the policy is more sustainable from a cost perspective.
duration of each charge and increasing the frequency of
recharging (i.e., recharging the batteries to below 100
percent of full capacity). This strategy provides a way to 5 Process integration
realizing the productivity and flexibility of the AGV
system (Kabir and Suzuki, 2018). Mobile chargers can The operations management of the various processes in
be used to charge the battery-powered machines on duty warehouses is logically interrelated. In a well-managed
locations. The adoption of mobile chargers improves the warehouse, the consideration of interactions among
flexibility of the charging process. Cheng et al. (2021) various processes should be put forward for further
study the minimum required quantity of mobile chargers improvement of warehouse performance. Thus, integrated
and the scheduling of mobile chargers for power supple- planning in warehouse operations management should be
ments of robots. implemented. van Gils et al. (2018a) reveal the interactions
Handling speeds of workstations may influence the and relations among storage, batching, zoning, and routing
design and operation of warehouses. Zou et al. (2017) policies of the order picking process. The results indicate
design a model with neighborhood search algorithm to that the integrated decision of different processes can attain
obtain a better robot assignment for online retailers. Semi- remarkable benefits in warehouse research and operations.
open queueing network models and an approximate two- van Gils et al. (2018b) further review the combinations of
phase approach are presented to evaluate the proposed order picking planning problems in warehouse system
assignment rules. Furthermore, the appropriate size of design. The two reviews highlight the research value of
shelf blocks is designed based on the examined assign- combinational problems in warehouse operations manage-
ment rules. ment. This section will go through the research of smart
warehouses at the operational level and determine some
4.2 Tactical decision topics related to the integrated decision-making of smart
warehouse operations management. The first two topics
Storage assignment allocates the storage locations to items. are order processing and location assignment, which try to
It can be a conductive factor to warehouse strategic and implement overall planning in smart warehouse operation.
operational decisions. Different storage policies can The other two topics are resource allocation and
influence the optimal warehouse shape and storage space differentiated service and blocking rearrangement and
(Guo et al., 2016). For example, the operational decision, conflict-free routing, which deal with the new problems
picking position assignment, and workload balance among raised in smart warehouse operation.
pickers can also be influenced by the storage policy (Pan
et al., 2015; Ramtin and Pazour, 2015). 5.1 Order processing
Class-based storage policy is one of the most commonly
used storage policies in practice. It divides stored items Orders released to the system usually contain the demand
into different classes according to product characteristics information and attributes, such as task release time and
such as demand, product turnover, and life-cycle (Manzini due date (Man et al., 2021). Orders may be sequenced,
et al., 2015; Yuan et al., 2019). A small number of storage split, or batched to consolidate the scattered demand and
classes in a class-based storage policy is usually optimal reduce the unproductive works of order pickers (Emde
(Yu et al., 2015). Under class-based storage policy, et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020c).
different system configurations and first zone boundary Order sequencing mainly determines the sequence of
can result in different system performances (Zaerpour orders to be processed. Proper sequencing can reduce the
et al., 2017b; Zaerpour et al., 2017c). unproductive movement of the equipment and thus reduce
All SKUs of the same type are stored in a unique storage the total travel time and makespan (Gagliardi et al., 2015).
position in a dedicated storage policy. Kress et al. (2017) Foumani et al. (2018) adapt the traveling salesman
formalize a storage partition problem that subdivides items problem to a robotic AS/RS with a cross-entropy method
to find the optimal sequence of orders and optimal The objective can be either minimizing travel time or
sequence of multi-location items inside each order. minimizing the number of rack visits. Order sequencing
Order batching is a way to eliminate the inefficiency of and batching can affect the decision of location assign-
piece picking, in which the scattered demands from ment. Boysen et al. (2017) carry out a typical integrated
different orders are consolidated and fulfilled as a batch. order processing problem, where order sequencing, rack
A batch is composed of a subset of orders and the set of visits, and the study of the shared storage policy are
items corresponding to these orders. The productivity of optimized. Weidinger et al. (2018) propose the problem of
order batching on system throughput is significant in rack parking location assignment during order processing
automated warehouses (Nicolas et al., 2018). The order in RMFS. An interval scheduling problem is formalized
batching method applied in research is usually fixed for the problem, and a metaheuristic dubbed adaptive
batching, where all orders belonging to a batch are programming is introduced to solve the problem.
collected before the next batch is started. According to
Lenoble et al. (2021), rolling batching, where a new order 5.3 Resource allocation and differentiated service
immediately replaces each completed order belonging to
the current batch, and other dynamic batching methods can Robots are critical resources in RMFS. Some resource
improve system efficiency in terms of throughput time. allocation strategies are imposed on robots to enhance
As the contrast of order batching, the split order means system utilization. Resource pooling strategy refers to
that an order is divided into two or more parts for picking, group available resources together to maximize utilization
and different pickers may pick these parts. The power of of resources and counteract variability in the division of
order splitting in RMFS and the assignment of pods and resource management. The dedicated strategy in RMFS
orders to picking stations are investigated by Xie et al. refers to that a robot appears as a dedicated resource in the
(2021). Jiang et al. (2021) investigate the integrated system. In contrast, the pooled strategy breaks the property
decision of order splitting, batching, and batch assignment of dedicated resources to allow a robot to process needed
by constructing a two-stage optimization model. The first tasks. In Yuan and Gong (2017)’s research, two protocols
stage of the optimization model works out order splitting in sharing robots among order pickers are investigated.
and batching strategy, and the second stage assigns the The advantage of the pooled strategy is presented by
batches formed in the first stage to AGVs for order reducing the optimal number of robots needed and the
fulfillment. throughput time. Roy et al. (2019) compare the efficiency
Most of the warehouse picking literature concerns the of dedicated and pooled strategies for zone control in
optimization of the picking process, while considering the RMFS with single and multiple storage zones. The pooled
picking and replenishment process remains an open topic. strategy outperforms the dedicated strategy in terms of the
A proper order sequencing can facilitate the replenishment expected throughput time of the picking process. However,
process and prevent stock-outs in A-frame system with the replenishment process under the pooled strategy may
fewer workers (Boywitz et al., 2019). In RMFS, the take a longer time.
decision problem of order picking and batching along E-commerce companies are moving toward customer
with the replenishments could reduce the total shelf visits differentiation and prioritization. The differentiation and
(Jiang et al., 2020). prioritization in warehouse operations indicate the different
classes assigned to orders. The class is usually based on
5.2 Retrieval location assignment and scheduling price or customer priority, and orders with higher classes
are attached with tighter time limits than the lower-class
Warehouse systems need to perform retrieval tasks so that orders. Warehouses should prioritize the allocation of
the items stored in warehouses can be accessed. The resources to ensure the fulfillment of higher-class orders.
retrieval tasks raise two interrelated decisions, namely, Under this setting, the common objectives for prioritized
location assignment and retrieval scheduling. Location order picking are to minimize total travel time or distance.
assignment is about how to determine the selection of the In Gharehgozli and Zaerpour (2020)’s research, different
locations for the retrieval items. Retrieval scheduling priorities are attached to orders based on the order urgency.
establishes the schedule of warehouse equipment for the The research setting of Gong et al. (2021) states that the
retrieval process. The two decisions often interact with expedited shipping requests will be immediately processed
each other in real-life examples. The trade-off of the two when a robot is available. Weights can be used to
decisions must be carefully considered to optimize the characterize prioritization. In He et al. (2018)’s research,
total travel time (Yang et al., 2015a; Heshmati et al., 2019). some AGVs are dedicated to certain classes of orders.
Besides, proper storage policies, such as shared storage The weighted latency for different price-based classes of
policy, can benefit location assignment and retrieval customer orders is optimized. Wauters et al. (2016)’s
scheduling (Yang et al., 2015c). research minimizes prioritized waiting time of storage and
In RMFS, the retrieval location assignment problem retrieval scheduling problem. The prioritized waiting time
can be interpreted as selecting racks for the retrieval items. is calculated by the weighted sum of waiting time, in which
the weights are determined by customer priority. collision, node-occupancy collision, and shelf-occupancy
collision. The head-on collision happens if two AGVs
5.4 Blocking rearrangement and conflict-free routing move in the opposite direction on the same path at the
same time or pass the same workstation at the same time.
Warehouse operators usually encounter some unproductive The cross collision happens when two AGVs compete for
activities, such as rearranging blocking items and route the workstations at the intersections. The node-occupancy
congestion. These unproductive works are not value-added collision happens when an AGV stops at a point on another
and can lead to system inefficiency. Some special strategies AGV’s incoming route. The shelf-occupancy collision
should be implemented to avoid unnecessary works. happens when a shelf (rack) stops at a point on another
The blocking problem usually occurs in a unit-load AGV’s incoming route. Based on these classifications, three
warehouse or palletized warehouse. The blocking unit- solution strategies are carried out: Selecting the candidate
loads may block the requested unit-loads if the storage route, waiting for a short period before starting, and
position or sequence of the unit-loads is misallocated. The modifying the routes. These classifications and solutions
blocking unit-loads need to be rearranged and repositioned provide a framework for conflict-free routing.
to a free storage location to retrieve the requested unit- Zone control is a simple way to avoid collisions, where a
loads. The selection of the free storage locations for zone (usually an aisle or a zone that contains several aisles)
blocking rearrangement usually follows the rule of is occupied by only one AGV. In Lee et al. (2020)’s work,
rearrangement of the nearest location, which will reposi- two aisle access policies are proposed to prevent head-on
tion the unit-loads to the nearest free storage location collision and blocking of AGVs. The exclusive policy
(Lerher, 2016). Other rearrangement rules include rearran- indicates that an AGV must not access an aisle if another
ging to a random location and rearranging to a determi- AGV is already inside. The parallel policy indicates that
nistic point. The rearrangement to the nearest location rule AGVs can enter the same aisle simultaneously if they do
performs the best in terms of expected rearrangement time not cross.
(Xu et al., 2016). In a flow-rack AS/RS, unit-loads are The warehouse layout can be simplified as a grid model
stored on the flow racks’ storage face, and slided down to or abstracted by square topology method in which the
the retrieval face where the retrieving process is processed. ground of the warehouse is divided into many squares. The
The blocking problem in a flow-rack AS/RS may be more squares can represent different properties in warehouses,
troublesome because only the unit-loads on the retrieval such as aisle and pick-up position, and the driving routes
face can be directly retrieved. To evaluate the blocking can be expressed as several consecutive squares. Square
effect in flow-rack AS/RS, Chen et al. (2015) propose a topology method provides a simplified method to detect
travel time model of bi-directional flow-rack AS/RS the potential route intersection and collision of robots (Han
where adjacent columns of racks slope to the opposite and Yu, 2020). Based on this, Małopolski (2018) proposes
directions to rearrange blocking unit-loads within the same a method for collisions and deadlock prevention based on
face directly. chains of elementary reservations. The warehouse layout
Proper storage assignment and retrieving scheduling can be further abstracted as nodes and arcs in the
can eliminate the possible rearrangement of blocking undirected graph (Thanos et al., 2019). Zhao et al.
unit-loads. Boywitz and Boysen (2018) propose a robust (2020b) use dynamic resource reservation for scheduling
storage assignment to protect against the uncertainty of and collision avoidance of AGV warehouse with graph
due dates to avoid blockings and excessive retrieval effort. model. Saidi-Mehrabad et al. (2015) propose an integrated
Chen et al. (2016) investigate the sequencing of storage model of conflict-free routing and job shop scheduling.
and retrieval operation in flow-rack AS/RS with duration- System coordination requires considering the whole
of-stay storage policy to minimize the total travel time and system to improve the global performance instead of
eliminate restoring of blocking unit-loads. focusing only on a single aspect of the system. Coordina-
A route in the AGV-assist picking system implies the tion of AGVs and robot fleets is a solution for improving
path that AGV should follow. When performing storage production efficiency and flexibility and eliminating
and retrieval operations, the routes of two or more AGVs congestion and collision in warehouse systems (Digani
may conflict, resulting in blocking or colliding. The et al., 2015). The system’s control can be decentralized
blocking and collision problem of AGVs may appear (Draganjac et al., 2016) or centralized (Digani et al., 2019).
within aisles, along the cross aisles, or at the intersections Decentralized approaches directly address the complexity
of aisles and cross-aisles. Route intersection must be of large-scale multi-robot coordination problems, whereas
concerned to avoid collision and unnecessary waiting centralized approaches can find the optimal global
(Roy et al., 2015b). solutions. Furthermore, holonic scheduling method can
According to Zhang et al. (2018), the warehouse collision be applied to coordination scheduling (Yoshitake et al.,
can be classified into four types: Head-on collision, cross 2019).
6 Environmental sustainability refrigeration and picking operations are considered in the

model.
Climate change, resource shortage, and other environ- Compared with the traditional crane-based system,
mental problems have posed significant threats to the AGVs and shuttles in warehouses can achieve higher
future of human society. The term “sustainability”, which flexibility and efficiency in throughput and better environ-
progressively incorporates social, environmental, and mental impact. In Tappia et al. (2015), energy consumption
economic responsibilities, is primarily about the develop- and environmental impact are selected as the indicators for
ment process that meets the present needs without comparing AS/RS and AVS/RS. The results point out that
compromising the ability of the future. In the logistics AVS/RS can achieve a win–win situation in economic and
section, sustainable logistics and supply chain manage- environmental performance. The sustainability feature of
ment is carried out to seek improvements in their AVS/RS and SBS/RS in energy saving and carbon
environmental performance and gain the competitive emission reduction is also demonstrated by Gružauskas
edge in an eco-friendly way (Dadhich et al., 2015; Yu et al. (2018) and Yetkin Ekren et al. (2018).
et al., 2016; Shi et al., 2019). Energy regeneration could be another factor that affects
Smart warehouses usually consume much more energy sustainable strategic design. Yetkin Ekren (2021) presents
than traditional manual warehouses because more auto- a multi-objective solution approach considering the trade-
mated facilities are used in smart warehouses. Increasing off between average cycle time and energy consumption.
energy consumption in warehouses becomes a major Energy consumption and energy regeneration by decelera-
component of warehouse operational costs. Meanwhile, tion of vehicles and lifts are considered in the system. The
the increase in energy consumption produces extra carbon result reveals that the cycle time is mainly influenced by
emissions to nature, which is the main cause of climate the footprint shape, including the number of aisles, bays,
change. Sustainable warehouses aim to pursue sustain- and tiers. The energy consumption is mainly affected by
ability goals, such as energy efficiency, greenhouse gas the number of tiers. The Pareto optimal solutions of system
emission reduction, cost reduction, and throughput time design can be obtained by considering both performance
minimization. Sustainability is a common thread running measures simultaneously.
through strategic, tactical, and operational decisions of the The concept of energy-efficient design can extend to
sustainable warehouse. other types of facilities. For example, Zaerpour et al.
In this section, we will summarize and reveal how the (2017a) derive a closed-form expected retrieval time
smart warehouse can achieve sustainability goals in formula of the live-cube system. The comparison between
warehouse operations management. Similar to the division the live-cube systems and traditional systems is proposed
of previous sections, the literature related to sustainable to show the special feature of live-cube systems in
topics in smart warehouses is reviewed and categorized investment, operational costs, and energy consumption.
into two aspects: Strategic and tactical decision and For the tactical decision of the sustainable warehouse, a
operational decision. proper storage assignment can improve picking efficiency
and reduce energy consumption. Li et al. (2020) propose a
6.1 Sustainable warehouse strategic and tactical decision turnover rate-based decentralized storage policy of the
KIVA warehouse and then carry out an energy-consump-
Different research topics and methods are attached to the tion-aware evaluation method for the storage assignment.
sustainable warehouse’s strategic and tactical decision and
evaluation. Energy consumption and carbon emission are 6.2 Sustainable warehouse operational decision
major influence factors in sustainable warehouse design.
Cold-chain logistics are essential to food supply chains According to the literature reviewed, the sustainable goal
to keep the freshness of products. Refrigerated AS/RS can be realized in warehouse operational decisions by
becomes a preferred choice for storage in cold-chain various methods, such as sequencing, scheduling, and
logistics since automated equipment is more adaptable in power load management. To some extent, the win–win of
the cold environment than labors. In such a system, the environmental and operational objectives can be achieved
refrigerator accounts for a large proportion of energy in the sustainable warehouse because eliminating useless
consumption. Reducing refrigeration energy consumption work can improve efficiency while reducing energy
becomes a key problem in the sustainable design of consumption.
refrigerated AS/RS. Meneghetti and Monti (2015) propose Sequencing and scheduling optimization can take effect
a sustainable design model for refrigerated AS/RS. The in energy saving and greenhouse gas reduction. Roozbeh
configuration of racks and cold cells are conjointly Nia et al. (2017) investigate the improvement of green-
optimized to minimize the total yearly cost other than house gas efficiency in unit-load multiple-rack AS/RS by
investments of the automated storage facility. The cost of a DC “dynamic sequencing” method. Habibi Tostani et al.
energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions for (2020) propose a two-level optimization framework of
dual shuttle cranes scheduling problems. The upper level level. Besides, little research on warehouse operations
optimizes class-based storage location assignment and management has been worked out considering the
inventory consideration to minimize the total cost and influence of interconnection technologies. The research
energy consumption. The lower level optimizes the multi- on the interconnection issues of warehouse design and
period scheduling of cranes in AS/RS, which involves the control has a broad foreground, for example, real-time
necessities of reward scheduling and workload balance to control and dynamic decision-making of warehouse
time windows. Ene et al. (2016) investigate the picking systems.
operation in warehouses to reduce energy consumption Equipment automation: Several automated warehous-
and find proper storage policy. ing systems are reviewed. The deployment of these
Sequencing and scheduling in the sustainable warehouse systems requires large investments and careful planning
can be extended to the viewpoint of power-load manage- at strategic and tactical levels. In the future, systems with
ment. Electricity suppliers usually charge higher prices at higher automation levels, such as various warehouse
peak periods and lower prices at valley periods to users. robots, will be implemented broadly and will profoundly
Power-load management is a customer-side system used change the operation mode. Based on the status of the
to avoid electricity peaks while making better use of warehousing industry, research on the upgrade of existing
electricity valleys. Power-load management sets thresholds warehouse systems may need more attention. For example,
to determine whether electric consumption in peak periods picking-assist facilities could be more popular, especially
needs to be avoided. If the thresholds are jeopardized, in system upgrades of traditional warehouses. Picking-
some tasks will be delayed, and the machines stop to assist facilities such as AMRs and robots can support the
reduce power usage. Hahn-Woernle and Gunthner (2018) picking process of picker-to-parts warehouse and make
investigate the multi-aisle mini-load AS/RS operation better use of existing warehouse configuration. Other types
problem from the power-load management perspective. of warehouse robots, like climbing robots, may change
The simulation result shows that electricity peaks can be warehouse strategic and tactical decisions deeply. The
avoided with only a small loss of throughput. In the AGV research on the evaluation and system design of the
picking system, power-load management can be imple- emerging system could provide essential guidance for the
mented by carefully scheduling the battery charging system deployment.
process to avoid higher electricity prices in peak time. Process integration: We attempt to review the operation
Basso et al. (2019) expand the AGV battery charging and optimization in warehouse research by several
problem to the electricity tariff varying by hour and common integration topics on the operational level,
exploit the availability of cheaper renewable energy which is a relatively new review structure to our best
sources. The study determines the charging schedule, knowledge. These topics cover major research fields of
including the start time of charging and the assignment of operations management and optimization. Meaningful
batteries to chargers. expansion of these issues, such as integrating receiving
and delivery with other warehouse operation processes,
needs more attention. The integrated operation of the
7 Conclusions and future research emerging warehouse system could be another direction
that needs to be addressed. Most existing research still
Smart warehouses play an important role in the future focuses on the operations of the traditional systems, such
development of warehouses. In this review, we attempt an as crane-based systems. To ensure the completeness of this
extensive review of the published research related to smart part, we select some literature that focuses on these
warehouses. From the contents above, the research on traditional systems. We think the operations of these
smart warehouses has attracted the attention of scholars, systems may provide some reference and inspiration to
logistics, and other industries. The conclusions, future the emerging systems. For example, the operation of the
research opportunities, and limitations are listed below. block-stacking system may provide some insights into the
Information interconnection: Interconnection is a operations management of the robotic compact storage
relatively new issue in warehouse operation, which IoT system mentioned in Zou et al. (2018a)’s study because of
and CPS bring up. IoT, CPS, and other emerging inter- the similarities of the two systems. The content of process
connection technologies enhance information interaction integration still needs to be expanded by the future research
within the warehouse system and the entire logistics chain. of the emerging systems.
From the reviewed literature, we can find that RFID is the Environmental sustainability: According to our review,
primary IoT technology used in warehouse operations. appropriate strategic, tactical, and operational strategies are
The application of other emerging technology, such as carried out to achieve the sustainable development objective
sensors and smart things in warehouse operation, needs in the warehouse section. Energy saving is the mainstream
to be studied. IT-enabled warehouse systems could be in sustainable warehouse development. More energy-saving
another research direction on the system configuration methods and technologies, such as energy regeneration, the
use of green energy sources, and power-load management, analysis of vertical robotic storage and retrieval systems. Transporta-
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Front. Eng. Manag.

A literature review of smart warehouse operations

Received February 19, 2021; accepted June 7, 2021

automation aims to achieve automatic operation through 2 Research methodology

Table 2 Keywords set

Fig. 5 Clusters of keywords co-occurrence (2010–2014).

Fig. 6 Clusters of keywords co-occurrence (2015–2020).

Yu et al. (2015) √ √ Warehousing Optimal number and boundaries Class-based storage √ HA √

Thanos et al. √ √ Vehicles Dispatch and conﬂict-free routing Conﬂict-free routing HA

Li et al. (2020) √ RMFS Storage assignment Energy consumption √ √

6 Environmental sustainability refrigeration and picking operations are considered in the

Research, 57(4): 963–984 Production Economics, 170: 763–779

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