Seminar (2) in Management Science

The topics in the upcoming wintersemester 2024/25 of the seminars will be as follows:

Bachelor seminar: “Online order batching and picking in manual picker-to-parts warehouses”

Master seminar: “Advanced topics in online order batching”

The topics of our bachelor and master seminar in this term are closely interrelated, which offers potential for additional interesting discussions.

Please note that our Bachelor's and Master's seminars are held in English and that both the presentations and the seminar paper must be written in English.

In the dynamic world of e-commerce, the efficient management and picking of orders plays an important role. Efficiency and speed are key competitive factors for companies operating in this sector. Order picking is the most important activity in distribution centers as it is very labor intensive and accounts for a significant portion of the total cost of ownership.

The order batching problem is about optimizing the grouping of multiple individual orders into larger batches to maximize the efficiency of picking and delivery. Many factors determine the performance of the process, such as the layout of the warehouse, the routing policy, the sorting policy, the storage strategy or the batching method.

The online order batching problem is particularly relevant in the e-commerce context. These problems differ from offline order batching problems in that a dynamic arrival of orders in the warehouse is assumed.

Despite the great relevance of the topic, many research questions remain unanswered. Most research studies investigate theoretical variants of order batching and often only assume a single picker and the offline variant of the problem. Realistic variants of the problem have only been researched to a limited extent. In addition, the order batching problem is often only considered in isolation. 

The course participants are invited to gain deep understanding of their research topic (see the list of topics) by preparing a seminar paper and presenting their findings in the final workshop of the course. For each topic, course participants will receive some suggested literature (such as recent journal articles or a book chapter), which will serve as a starting point for an independent scientific research. All the topics will be processed in groups of 2-3 students. Depending on the preferences of the group, it is possible to formulate individual subtopics of the common group topic.

1. Investigating storage location assignment policies
2. Order picking under multi-location storage systems
3. Studying the effects of dynamic batch updates
4. Exploring suitable scenarios for different time-window methods

Pardo, E. G., Gil-Borrás, S., Alonso-Ayuso, A., and Duarte, A. (2024). Order batching problems: Taxonomy and literature review. European Journal of Operational Research, 313(1):1–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2023.02.019

Gil-Borrás, S., Pardo, E. G., Jiménez, E. and Sörensen, K. (2024). The time-window strategy in the online order batching problem. International Journal of Production Research, 62:12, 4446-4469. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2023.2263884

Yang, P., Zhao, Z., Guo, H. (2020). Order batch picking optimization under different storage scenarios for e-commerce warehouses. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review 136, 101897. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2020.101897

Silva, A., Roodbergen, K. J., Coelho L. C. and Darvish M. (2022). Estimating optimal ABC zone sizes in manual warehouses. International Journal of Production Economics, 252, 108579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2022.108579

Henn, S. (2012) Algorithms for on-line order batching in an order picking warehouse.Computers and Operations Research 39 (11): 2549–2563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2011.12.019

Bachelor:

1. Interest in quantitative methods.
2. Ability to understand optimization models and to set up own optimization models as well as basic understanding of algorithms. These skills, for instance, are taught in the courses “Fundamentals of Management Science” and “Supply Chain & Operations Management”.
3. Fluent reading of texts in English, which will be the language of this seminar

Master:

1. Interest in quantitative methods.
2. Ability to understand optimization models and to set up own optimization models as well as basic understanding of algorithms. These skills, for instance, are taught in the courses “Fundamentals of Business Analytics” and “Advanced Topics in Management Science”.
3. Fluent reading of texts in English, which will be the language of this seminar

​​​​​​Kick-off event:

The kick-off event will take place in the week of June 24-28. The exact date will be announced shortly. 

Meetings:

1. Meeting: Topics and tasks (Mid october)

   • Presentation of topics, round of introductions, selection of topics and groups

   • Tips for writing a good scientific paper

2. Meeting: Interim presentation (Mid november)

   • Interim presentation

   • Presentations, project timelines, feedback session, tips on academic presentation.

3.  Termin: Question and answer session (Early december)

   • Question and answer session/presenting work progress

   • Time for consultation

4.  Termin: Final presentation (Mid/End january)

   • 15 min. presentation, peer reviews

Submission of the seminar paper: penultimate week of lectures

Seminar topics for the upcoming 2024 summer semester are as follows:

Bachelor Seminar: "Spillover Effects in Competitive Facility Location".

Master Seminar: "Advanced Modelling and Solution Techniques for the Facility Location Problem".

The topics of our bachelor’s and master's seminar for next semester are closely linked and thus offer potential for further interesting discussions.

Facility location analysis is one of the most well-studied areas of the operations research. In the basic model, there is a predefined cost for opening a facility and connecting a customer to a facility, the goal is to minimize the total cost. The typical facility location problem assumes that the locating facility is either a price taker or a monopolist, so that the market competition is neglected among the companies. However, this simplified assumption does not fit in most real-life situation and the need arises to incorporate competition among the decisionmakers. Indeed, competitive location models additionally incorporate the fact that location decisions have been or will be made by independent decision-makers who will subsequently compete for market share, profit maximization, etc. In addition, the assignment of customers being served by these facilities and how these facilities relate to each other are interesting decisions considered within the problem.

The course participants are invited to gain deep understanding of their research topic (see the list of topics) by preparing a seminar paper and presenting their findings in the final workshop of the course. For each topic, course participants will receive some suggested literature (such as recent journal articles or a book chapter), which will serve as a starting point for independent scientific research. All the topics will be processed in groups of 2-3 students. Depending on the preferences of the group, it is possible to formulate individual subtopics of the common group topic.

Sample topics Bachelor Seminar:

1. Modelling the Cannibalization of Retail Outlets.
2. Classification and Critical Assessment of the Customers’ Patronage Decision in Competitive Facility Location Problems.
3. Evidence for the Synergetic Effects of Competing Facilities Co-Location on their Market Share.

Sample topics Master Seminar:

1. Voronoi Diagrams and Their Applications in Facility Location Problems.
2. Conditional Location Problems on Networks and in the Plane.
3. Selected Heuristics for Location Models.

Eiselt, H. A., & Marianov, V. (Eds.). (2011). Foundations of Location Analysis (Vol. 155). Springer US.

doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7572-0

Karakitsiou, A. (2015). Modeling Discrete Competitive Facility Location. Springer International Publishing.

doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21341-5

And other recent publications.

Bachelor:

1. Interest in quantitative methods.
2. Ability to understand optimization models and to set up own optimization models as well as basic understanding of algorithms. These skills, for instance, are taught in the courses “Fundamentals of Management Science” and “Supply Chain & Operations Management”.
3. Fluent reading of texts in English, which will be the language of this seminar

Master:

1. Interest in quantitative methods.
2. Ability to understand optimization models and to set up own optimization models as well as basic understanding of algorithms. These skills, for instance, are taught in the courses “Fundamentals of Business Analytics” and “Advanced Topics in Management Science”.
3. Fluent reading of texts in English, which will be the language of this seminar

The application period will start on the January 15^th 2024.
Further information regarding the application will be published here later.