Development Of A Method To Identify A Suitable Storage, Commissioning And Transport System By Focussing On Automation, Versatility And Costs

Storage planning is an important element of the factory planning and a significant competitive factor in times of an increasing global market [1]. The selection of a suitable storage, commissioning and transport system (sct system) is a major challenge for companies, because of the increasing number of new sct systems with different features. The level of automation and versatility of these systems are intransparent and the required level of both for a certain company is unknown [2,3]. To identify the level of versatility of sct systems a method based on versatility characteristics assigned to the versatility enablers was developed [4]. To determine the required versatility of sct systems for a particular company, a catalogue of change drivers was created. For the level of automation of sct systems, the requirements resulting from product characteristics and performance requirements of the warehouse were identified. The performance of the sct systems depends on the automation level, which can be set by influencing factors such as the degree of digitalization. The required level of automation must be determined by restrictions of the company and the identified possibilities of the systems [1]. At the same time, it is required to consider the costs of the systems as well as their possible combinations. Therefore, to save costs, the aim is also to consider systems which do not fit perfectly to the required versatility and automation level for a company but are still at an acceptable level