Multi-AGV Assisted OPS in Warehouse Using Digital Twins and Layout Comparison

In recent years, the logistics industry has faced increasing demands for delivering small quantities of diverse products within short deadlines. Among warehouse operations, the efficiency of order picking (OP), which involves picking and consolidating ordered items, has been widely discussed. For instance, with the rapid growth of the e-commerce industry today, the wide variety of orders and small batch sizes make warehouse optimization a top priority. However, due to high costs and operational complexity, 80% of warehouses still rely on manual OP, and automated order picking systems (OPS) have yet to become widespread. In this study, as a case study of cost-effective OPS implementation, we developed a Multi-AGV Assisted OPS within a digital twin warehouse and visualized OP operations following optimized routes. To investigate the requirements for a high-efficiency and high-availability warehouse layout, we executed the system while varying the number of AGVs and unloading areas and compared the OP processing time and completion rate. As a result, system efficiency was proportional to the number of AGVs. And then, high efficiency and availability were achieved when unloading areas were appropriately allocated, and the number of AGVs matched the number of unloading areas in this system.