KIVA SYSTEM FOR SMART WAREHOUSE

Abstract

Smart Warehousing is a revolutionary idea to the logistics and warehousing industry. The key of Smart Warehouse is the level of automation on its equipment. Automation provides cost-effective solutions for meeting market needs, such as space savings and productivity improvement. The hottest issue about automation in the warehouse industry comes from Amazon as the biggest e-commerce in the world. They install a mobile robotic fulfillment system named Kiva system to operate their warehouse operation. Kiva Mobile Fulfillment System is used to improve the efficiency of warehouse management, speed, accuracy and flexibility of the top technology of autonomous mobile robot. Kiva system has a lot of advantages to optimize activitiesin the warehouse by replacing people with robot to handle goods including search, pick, deliver to certain location, and etc. Despite its advantages, there are many challenges in Kiva system application. This study aims to investigate some challenges in Kiva system through intensive literature study and simulation. The result shows some problemsin Kiva system are queuing battery charging, order assignment decision, and avoiding collision.