Supervisor: Dr Banu Yetkin Ekren
With the recent increase in e-commerce, customer demand profiles have changed towards increased variety with decreased volume size, and decreased delivery time requests. This change has led to increased complexity in the management of warehouses. Hence, warehouse managers are increasingly adopting automation technologies in their facilities to manage their operations more efficiently. For instance, automated mobile robots are now widely utilized in warehouse operations. It is important to design these automated systems in such a way that, they meet the current and future system requirements correctly. For example, important design parameters to consider in designing such systems include:
- how many robots are required?
- how will they travel in the warehouse?
- how will they interact with each other and the system environment?
- what should be the physical design of the warehouse?
- what level of intelligence should be involved in the warehouse decisions?
Potential topics could focus on, but are not limited to:
- Automated warehouse technologies
- Design and analysis of automated warehouses
- Simulation modelling of warehouse systems
- Agent-based modelling for smart warehouse operations
Contact Details:
Candidates who are interested in those topics are invited to contact with Dr Banu Y. Ekren (banu.yetkinekren@cranfield.ac.uk) for setting out a preliminary research agenda as a guide for discussion, and indicating what readings you could do around the topic.
