SIMULATION-BASED PLANNING AND DIMENSIONING OF AN AUTOMATIC LAUNDRY STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL UNIT WITH DYNAMIC STORAGE LOCATION SIZES

Industrial laundries in Germany face a high pressure to increase their efficiency due to an ongoing market concentration. While many processes in an industrial laundry are already highly automated and optimized, order picking is still done manually. As RFID proliferates in industrial laundries, goods become traceable and identifiable. This enables the effective use of automated picking systems. Automation systems in the laundry industry face the challenge of pliable (form unstable) goods. This paper shows how the planning and dimensioning of an automated Laundry Order Consolidation System (LOCSys) can be supported by simulation modelling, already beginning in the early conception stage of the system.