| dc.description.abstract | This study discusses about Robotic Mobile Fulfillment Systems, especially
Kiva robot, and analyzes their performance. A Robotic Mobile Fulfillment
System is an automated, parts-to-picker storage system where robots bring
pods with products to a workstation. It is especially suited for e-commerce
distribution centers with large assortments of small products, and with
strong demand fluctuations. Such a system stores goods in movable shelves
and uses movable robots to transport the shelves. The robot is battery
powered and the battery depletes during operations, which can seriously
affect the performance of the system. To perform all the advantage
provided, company should be able to optimize the use of RMFS.
Evaluating the position of the workstation and evaluating the battery
management is one of the way. For evaluating workstation this study
discusses four different models to be tested and include the role of nonzoning and zoning area. As for evaluating battery management, we build a
network consist of three methods of charging : plug-in, inductive charging,
and swapping battery; and solve it using Semi Open Queueing Network
(SOQN). The result show that the maximum throughput is insensitive to the
length-to-width ratio of the storage area and location of workstation is the
warehouse matters. Also, the depleted battery made a significant change to the
entire system in warehouse. | en_US |
