Paper Info
Title
Modeling of Workflow Congestion and Optimization of Flow Routing in a Manufacturing/Warehouse Facility
Abstract
This paper discusses the notion of workflow congestion in the context of material handling equipment interruptions in a manufacturing or warehousing facility. Development of a combination of probabilistic and physics-based models for workflow interruptions permits evaluation of the expected link travel time. The problem is then of routing in a way that minimizes total expected travel time. The rerouting problem is modeled as a multicommodity flow problem with link capacity design. A greedy upper bounding and Lagrangean relaxation algorithm are developed to solve this efficiently. To calibrate our modeling process we develop an object-oriented simulation model that explicitly considers various workflow interruptions. Our major finding is that rerouting traffic in a congested facility can significantly alleviate congestion delays and improve the efficiency of material movement. A managerial insight derived from this work is that rerouting is most effective in medium traffic-intensity situations.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1287/mnsc.1080.0916
Management Science
Keywords
Field
DocType
material handling equipment interruption,workflow congestion,workflow interruption,multicommodity flow problem,expected link travel time,congested facility,warehouse facility,congestion delay,material movement,link capacity design,various workflow interruption,flow routing,upper bound,multicommodity flow
Information flow (information theory),Mathematical optimization,Economics,Object-oriented programming,Flow routing,Probabilistic logic,Multi-commodity flow problem,Workflow,Traffic congestion,Bounding overwatch
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
55
2
0025-1909
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
6
0.71
10
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Min Zhang160.71
Rajan Batta284989.39
Rakesh Nagi344345.82