Correlated storage assignment approach in warehouses: A systematic literature review

Purpose: Correlation-based storage assignment approach has been intensively explored during the last three decades to improve the order picking efficiency. The purpose of this study is to present a comprehensive assessment of the literature about the state-of-the-art techniques used to solve correlated storage location assignment problems (CSLAP).Design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review has been carried out based on content analysis to identify, select, analyze, and critically summarize all the studies available on CSLAP. This study begins with the selection of relevant keywords, and narrowing down the selected papers based on various criteria.Findings: Most correlated storage assignment problems are expressed as NP-hard integer programming models. The studies have revealed that CSLAP is evaluated with many approaches. The solution methods can be mainly categorized into heuristic approach, meta-heuristic approach, and data mining approach. With the advancement of computing power, researchers have taken up the challenge of solving more complex storage assignment problems. Furthermore, applications of the models developed are being tested on actual industry data to comprehend the efficiency of the models.Practical implications: The content of this article can be used as a guide to help practitioners and researchers to become adequately knowledgeable on CSLAP for their future work.Originality/value: Since there has been no recent state-of-the-art evaluation of CSLAP, this paper fills that need by systematizing and unifying recent work and identifying future research scopes.