Automation solutions for E-commerce multi-item packing
Name
1051237417-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
8.94 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
af6312d7fbe4d9ba96cc64e6ce6a0116
Author(s)
Walker, Andrew (Andrew Millington)
Advisor(s)
Nikolaos Trichakis and Maria Yang.
Date Issued
2018
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
As Amazon continues to experience a rapid growth in its e-commerce business, fulfillment efficiency needs to through safe implementation of advanced technology to create a better customer experience. Amazon has heavily invested in automating its outbound product sortation process that merges picked items but has yet to develop automation for multi-item packing. Individual item manipulation has been proven very challenging to automate due to the over 500 million unique products offered. This thesis proposes a container manipulation solution that integrates industrial robotics and other equipment with upstream sortation technology to automate the packing process. A physical prototype was built to test the concept and measure proficiency in critical quality metrics such as item accuracy, product damage, and packing density/orientation. Additionally, an operational simulation for the system was developed to determine the optimal capacity sizing for the integrated sortation and packing system. Lastly, sensitivity analysis on a financial model was performed to optimize for the net present value (NPV) and payback period. After a series of controlled experiments and process improvements, the prototype produced promising results, given the rudimentary nature of the prototype. The system generated item accuracy defects at 2%, product damage defects at 2% and packing orientation defects at 17%. While these results are not adequate to be used in live operation, a development path to acceptable performance appears attainable. Furthermore, implementation of the technology would generate approximately and $100M in NPV across the global fulfillment network.
Description
Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2018.
Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2018.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (page 49).
Subjects
Sloan School of Management.
Mechanical Engineering.
Leaders for Global Operations Program.
MIT Department
Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Sloan School of Management
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