Improvement of warehouse unloading process by using simulation

Abstract

This thesis addressed a conspicuous problem of freight forwarders in unloading containers at warehouse, which usually takes very long time. The thesis used discrete event dynamic simulation to simulate the incoming trucks and the unloading activities at a warehouse of DAMCO. The arrival trucks are assigned to lines by FIFO rule. Container processing time, waiting time and the efficiency of workers, forklifts and tallymen assigment for the unloading activities were analyzed through simulation. After testing different senarios in simulation, the optimum worker assignment that minimizes the container waiting time was finally suggested. The difference between my work and other research papers the application of using adjustment in assigning schedules of labor- force to test between scenarios and find the optimal solution. After completing the thesis, the solution also gives positive impacts on tackling effectively the waiting time problems during company‟s rush- hour. Keywords: Simulation, workers assignment, unloading containers, warehouse optimization.