New, global and extended markets are forcing companies to process and manage increasingly different products with shorter life cycles, low volumes and reduced customer delivery times. In today's global marketplace production systems need to deliver products on time, maintain market credibility, and introduce new products and services faster than competitors. As a result, a new production system paradigm has been developed and a supporting management decision-making approach, which simultaneously incorporates design, management, and control of the production system, is necessary in order...

With increased globalization and offshore sourcing, global supply chain management is becoming an important issue for many businesses as it involves a company's worldwide interests and suppliers rather than simply a local or national orientation. The storage systems significantly affect the level of quality of products, the customer's service level, and the global logistic cost. The mission of warehousing systems design, control and optimization is to effectively ship products in the right place, at the right time, and in the right quantity (i.e. in any configuration) without any...