Solving the grocery backroom layout problem

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2020

Authors

Maria Pires (Author) Other; Elsa Silva (Author) Other; Pedro Amorim (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: International Journal of Production Research

Vol. 59 No. 3

Pages: 772-797

ISSN: 0020-7543

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 5 Citations

Scopus - 5 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00R-JD6

DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2019.1708990

Abstract (EN): The backroom of retail stores has structural differences when compared with other warehouses and distribution centres, which are more traditionally studied in the literature. This paper presents a mathematical optimisation approach for an unequal area facility layout problem, applied in designing the backroom layout in grocery retail. A set of rectangular facilities (backroom departments) with given area requirements has to be placed, without overlapping, on a limited floor space (backroom area), which can have a regular or an irregular shape. The objective is to find the location and format of the storage departments, such that the walking distances in the store by store employees are minimised. The proposed approach is tested in a European grocery retailer. In the computational experiments, several real store layouts are compared with the ones suggested by the proposed model. The decrease in the walking distances is, on average, 30 percent. In order to understand what the current designers' strategy is, a set of scenarios was created and compared with the real layouts. Each scenario ignores a characteristic of the problem. The goal is to understand what aspect designers are currently discarding. The findings indicate that, currently, designers neglect the different replenishment frequencies of storage departments. © 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 26