Using a Simulation Model to Evaluate the Configuration of a Sortation Facility

At a parcel delivery company, the items being shipped must be sorted by destination. However, the company typically serves more destinations than there are distinct positions for sorting within their sortation. Therefore, several destinations may be assigned to some of the sort positions. It is also possible to assign a single destination to multiple sort positions, if the destination has an extremely high volume. At one major parcel delivery company, sort position assignments were previously made by examining how well a configuration had performed and where imbalances were observed. Then, based on this experience and the expected package volume, destinations were assigned to sort positions in the facility. To provide its engineers with more information for making this decision, a model of their sortation facility was developed for this company. The simulation model allows testing of multiple configurations before they are implemented in the system. The model also allows different con...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: WSC
• Authors: Dale Masel, David Goldsmith
• Keywords: Modeling And Simulation, Multiple Sort Positions, Parcel Delivery Company, Sort Positions, WSC 1997