• IE interfaces
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.333-342
• /
• 2008

Warehouses form an important link in a supply chain network. Among a variety of activities in warehouses, order picking is the process of retrieving a number of items out of storage to meet customer orders. Today, as the transactions through direct sales are wide spread, warehouses often receive a large amount of small orders to be handled within tight time windows, which makes fast and efficient order picking more important than ever. This paper examines a new order picking method where the concept of bucket brigade (BB) is applied. Bucket brigade is a way of dynamically coordinating workers who progressively perform a set of operations along a flow line. In bucket brigades, a worker is not assigned his jobs in a static way. Each worker takes a job from his predecessor when he is free. We identify some considerations when bucket brigades are applied to order picking activities. A new BB picking protocol is presented to improve existing BB picking protocols. Through simulation experiments, the performance of BB order picking is evaluated under various logistics environments.

• IE interfaces
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.144-152
• /
• 2009

Assembly line has been recognized as an efficient production system in mass production. However, the recent production environment characterized as mass customization urges production managers to transform a long assembly line to a number of short assembly cells. To maximize the utilization of resources in an assembly cell, it is important to have the line balanced. This paper presents a bucket brigade-based assembly cell. Bucket brigade is a way of coordinating workers who progressively perform a set of assembly operations on a flow line. Each worker follows a simple rule: perform assembly operations on a product until the next worker downstream takes it over; then go back to the previous worker upstream to take over a new assembly job. In this way, the line balances itself. The bucket brigade assembly cell is analyzed and compared with traditional assembly lines and general assembly cells. The paper also discusses some prerequisite requirements and limitations when the bucket brigade assembly cells are employed.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
• /
• v.41 no.4
• /
• pp.330-337
• /
• 2015

A bucket-brigade is a way of transporting items where items are passed from one person to the next. The operation of the bucket brigade imitates the cooperative behavior of ants when brood, food or other resources are moved. Koo (2009) presented a bucket brigade-based assembly cell where each worker follows a simple rule: perform assembly operations on a product until the next worker downstream takes it over; then go back to the previous worker upstream to take over a new assembly job. In this way, the flow line is self-balanced without any predetermined job assignment. However, there are some productivity losses related to hand-off and blocking. This paper examines the hand-off and blocking losses and presents a new bucket brigade-based assembly cell where working areas for each assembler is restricted with the help of buffer interfaces. Simulation experiments are used to validate the performance of the new assembly system.