Because of increasing demands in parcel transportation, it is becoming increasingly important for logistics distribution centers to save time and money while dealing with parcel sortation operations. The role played by facility and layout planning in logistic distribution centers has a great impact on the performance of parcel sortation. In this study, a simulation-optimization approach is adopted to solve the sortation conveyor layout problem, particularly the design of shortcuts in the sortation system that enhances processing capacity. The capacity is defined by the throughput of the sortation system. A genetic algorithm with local search is proposed to find the optimal design of the sortation system. Simulation is used to evaluate the performance of algorithm results. Moreover, an experimental design is applied to optimize the parameter setting of the algorithm and the system. A practical case is studied to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.

由于包裹运输的需求不断增长，对于物流配送中心而言，在处理包裹分拣操作时节省时间和金钱变得越来越重要。物流配送中心的设施和布局规划所扮演的角色对包裹分拣的性能有很大影响。在这项研究中，采用模拟优化方法来解决分拣输送机布局问题，特别是分拣系统中快捷方式的设计，以提高处理能力。容量由分拣系统的吞吐量定义。提出了一种具有局部搜索的遗传算法，以找到分类系统的最佳设计。仿真用于评估算法结果的性能。此外，实验设计用于优化算法和系统的参数设置。研究了一个实际案例，以证明该方法的适用性。