Given the increasingly significant impact of\r\nan efficient product-location strategy on warehouses�\r\nperformance from a service level and operational costs\r\nperspective, this paper presents a possible operations\r\nresearch-oriented solution to provide a tangible\r\nreduction of the overall required warehousing space,\r\nthereby translating the storage location assignment\r\nproblem (SLAP) into a vertex colouring problem\r\n(VCP). Developing the topic of their previous work on\r\nthe development of an effective multi-product slotcode\r\noptimization heuristic, the authors focused on\r\nfinding a cost-effective way to solve the SLAP through\r\na mathematical-optimization approach. The formulation\r\nvalidation on a real industrial case showed its high\r\noptimization potential, and benchmarking simulations\r\ndisplayed performances significantly close to the best\r\ntheoretical case. Indeed, the optimized value results\r\nwere definitively close to the SLAP lower bound\r\ncalculated assuming a randomized storage policy\r\nwhich, distinct from the developed solution, must\r\ninevitably be supported by warehouse management\r\nsystem software. On the contrary, the proposed\r\nmethodology relies upon a dedicated storage policy,\r\nwhich is easily implementable by companies of all\r\nsizes without the need for investing in expensive IT\r\ntools.
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