Operational planning and scheduling benchmark problem in an automatic picking system

Optimization benchmark problems are useful because many researchers utilize them in order to fairly evaluate the performance of optimization methods. Most of them, however, are relatively simple, and optimization methods which can solve such problems cannot necessarily solve practical and complicated problems. In order to enable researchers to evaluate the performance of the optimization methods for the practical and complicated problems, this paper proposes an operational planning and scheduling benchmark problem in an automatic picking system based on a real system. In addition, we propose a method of generating a solution which is theoretically guaranteed to be feasible and superior for the benchmark problem. In the benchmark problem, products are sorted by loading them onto lanes and by discharging them onto a conveyor. Because the benchmark problem includes an assignment problem of the products to the lanes and a scheduling problem of the products on the conveyor, it is complicated. © 2015 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.