摘要

In an online order picking system, customer orders arrive in real time and the picking information is updated dynamically. One challenging problem is how to process customer orders in a timely manner. In this paper, a nonparametric heuristic method, Green Area, is presented to address the real-time online order batching problems. By nonparametric, we mean that our method is independent of the parameters of a warehouse layout and the characteristics of customer orders; these parameters facilitates the implementation in real life. The advantages of this method are verified under different scenarios by simulations. Specifically, the influences of the arrival rate, the number of order pickers and the number of orders in the order service time are discussed. The results demonstrate that the Green Area method leads to shorter order service times than traditional methods for optimal batch sizes. Finally, we demonstrate that the Green Area method can be applied to online order picking systems with variable arrival rates.