• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.33-46
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• 2006

In order to decrease the number of handles, speed up retrieval operations, and manage products efficiently, the investment of facilities such as the installation of the storage equipment and the enlargement of the storage area may be attempted. However, the same objectives can be accomplished by utilizing the existing storage area efficiently. In many types of storage facilities, because of the limitation of storage areas, products are usually piled up, which may cause rehandles of inventories. Rehandles influence significantly the handling efficiency of warehouses. This study develops methods for minimizing rehandles of inventories to improve the operational efficiency of warehouses. A mixed storage problem is addressed for minimizing the expected number of rehandles. Optimization models are proposed and the genetic algorithm is applied to solve the problem.