Simulation-based performance evaluation of the cellular transport system

Abstract

In recent years, the ability to respond to real-time changes in operations, agility in turbulent market environment, and reconfigurability in equipment are likely to become essential characteristics for next generation intralogistics systems to deal with the dynamic environment. The cellular transport system (CTS) that aims at coping with these new requirements provides an efficient way to increase flexibility and changeability of intralogistics systems. The main objective of this paper is to determine the performance of the CTS under various pre-defined scenarios in order to support the design process. Since analytical models have several simplifications and constraints, simulation is used to evaluate the real performance of the CTS. Furthermore, the paper discusses how we apply situated agent-based simulation as a tool for modeling and implementing a decentralized control of the vehicle. Simulation scenarios consist of different physical and environmental factors, such as varying the number of order lines, stochastic demand, number of aisles, number of racks, layout configuration, and number of multishuttle move in the system.