Analytical Model for Optimum Warehouse Dimensions

Warehouses are essential components of any supply chain in terms of customer service and cost levels. Warehouses are one of the important players in the success or failure of businesses from not only the customer service levels perspective but also the cost perspective. Warehouses, as one of the important components of supply networks, should be continually improved from design and operation perspectives to increase the performance. All efforts and solutions regarding the performance improvement are important and complex. In other words, warehouses should operate effectively in terms of the costs and technical performance that are determined during the design phase of warehouses. There are a few studies in the literature regarding the calculations of the optimum dimensions of a warehouse along the x, y, and z directions. In this paper, an analytical model is proposed to achieve the optimum warehouse dimensions in terms of the number of stocking zones along each of three dimensional axes directions: the x-, y-, and z-axes as non-linear mathematical modelling is developed to ensure the optimality. The warehouse dimensions (length, width, and height under the rafter of the building) are then calculated according to the results obtained from the model to minimise the average travel time