Christoph Glock

Technical University of Darmstadt | TU · Department of Law and Economics (Dept.1)

Order picking is among the most time- and cost-intensive internal logistics processes. One prerequisite for an efficient order picking process is an optimised warehouse layout that defines the general structure of the warehouse, type and position of the shelves, and dimensions and locations of the aisles. The framework conditions established by the...

The inventory management literature often assumes that items can be stocked indefinitely to satisfy future demands. In reality, there is a very large class of products for which this assumption is not appropriate, as they lose their characteristics over time while in stock, becoming partially, or totally, unfit for use. These products are generally...

Manual materials handling (MMH) is an important logistics activity. It often requires human workers to repetitively stretch or bend while handling materials, exposing workers to the risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). A structured approach of motion data collection serves as a first essential step to evaluate physical ergonomics of...

This open invited track at IFAC MIM 2025 aims to investigate the development of innovative approaches for integrating human factors in Industry 5.0 system design to create highly reliable and humanly sustainable production and logistics systems of the future. --- Draft papers reporting original research (limited to 6 pages in IFAC format) and exten...

This study proposes a generic approach for creating human factors-based assessment tools to enhance operational system quality by reducing errors. The approach was driven by experiences and lessons learned in creating the warehouse error prevention (WEP) tool and other system engineering tools. The generic approach consists of 1) identifying tool o...

Background Worldwide, the worker population age is growing at an increasing rate. Consequently, government institutions and companies are being tasked to find new ways to address age-related workforce management challenges and opportunities. The development of age-friendly working environments to enhance ageing workforce inclusion and diversity has...

The surge of e-commerce has revolutionized distribution channels, escalating from simple single-channel frameworks to complex multi-channel and omni-channel networks. In particular developments in information technology and rising customer expectations have popularized the transition from multi- to omni-channel distribution, where the classic brick...

Background Worldwide, the worker population age is growing at an increasing rate. Consequently, government institutions and companies are being tasked to find new ways to address age-related workforce management challenges and opportunities. The development of age-friendly working environments to enhance ageing workforce inclusion and diversity has...

PDF EPUB Share icon Back to Top Abstract This study presents a systematic literature review to understand the applications, benefits, and challenges of digital assistants (DAs) in production and logistics tasks. Our conceptual framework covers three dimensions: information management, collaborative operations, and knowledge transfer. We evaluate hu...

Drones have received growing attention in logistics recently. One possible application is deploying drones for auditing inventory in warehouses. With the use of drones, warehouses are able to increase inventory record accuracy and decrease labor costs. In this research, we introduce the stocktaking drone routing problem (STDRP), which consists of r...

This book examines the concept of Warehousing 5.0. Management has come to recognize that warehouses are not just simple storerooms but central pillars of competitive advantage and business success with high impact on the efficiency of supply chains. However, warehouse managers continue to struggle with improving operational performance and cutting...

With increasing competitive pressure, new technologies offer many opportunities for warehouse process innovations. One interesting technology in this context is unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones. This chapter identifies drone potentials and barriers and derives intralogistics deployment scenarios based on their comparison. Purposefully...

People with disabilities are a vital part of the society. Creating an inclusive workplace to involve people with disabilities in warehousing activities can facilitate their social integration and promote economic growth. In this chapter, we present a state-of-the-art synthesis of various assistive technologies for supporting people with disabilitie...

Automatically collecting information about products is becoming more and more important in industry. In addition to position data, companies may also be interested in collecting information on item quantities in stock or environmental conditions such as temperature. This chapter first discusses indoor positioning systems that enable companies to tr...

In recent decades, management has come to recognize that warehouses are not just simple storerooms but central pillars of competitive advantage and business success. Although the impact of warehousing on the efficiency of business processes and the supply chain is well known, managers still struggle to improve operational performance and cut costs....

Despite the use of technical assistive devices and automation, warehousing activities, and here especially order picking, are still often characterized by a high level of manual work. In the future, manual human labor will continue to play an essential role in warehousing in many companies due to its inherent flexibility. This chapter gives an over...

Warehouses are essential nodes in supply chains. Errors in warehousing processes can lead to rework and disruptions. They also reduce the service level, which increases costs and harms the company’s reputation. One objective of human-centric warehouse management is to design processes that are error-free. This chapter discusses a method for develop...

This chapter presents the potentials of using digital assistants (DAs) in supporting human workers in warehouses. We describe how DAs may facilitate human-machine/computer interaction, empower warehouse management and control, enable seamless collaborative operations, and promote customized training. We encourage warehouse managers to adopt DAs tog...

Human workers play essential roles in warehouses. One technology that can help identify patterns of worker-system interaction is Eye Tracking (ET). This chapter syntheses the state-ofknowledge of how ET technology can support warehouse operations. We look into warehousing activities that include receiving and shipping inspection, internal transport...

In recent years, advancements in technology have transformed traditional lighting systems into 'smart' solutions. This chapter provides an overview of the current state of smart lighting technologies and explores their potential applications in warehouse settings. We have identified three primary impacts on order picking processes when smart lighti...

Warehouses are key for supply chain efficiency and company success. Over the past decade, warehouse operations have become more complex due to small-quantity orders with volatile demand patterns and the need for fast and error-free deliveries. In line with these developments, order picking is among the most critical tasks in warehouses, as it direc...

We invite submissions to the invited session "Modelling and Optimization of Deteriorating Inventories" that will take place during the upcoming IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing (INCOM 2024) in Vienna, August 28-30, 2024. Submission Deadline: 31.01.2024

Legislation and stakeholders increasingly urge European original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to disclose and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their operations and supply chains. However, a sector-specific reporting standard is not yet available for manufacturing industry. This study takes a stepwise approach to identify the GHG emission s...

Angesichts des hohen Energiebedarfs in der verarbeitenden Industrie und der Notwendigkeit, erneuerbare Energiequellen trotz ihrer natürlichen Schwankungen weiter auszubauen, wird es immer wichtiger, Energienachfrage und Energieverfügbarkeit aufeinander abzustimmen. Mithilfe von Laststeuerungsprogrammen können Netzbetreiber Anreize für Verbraucher s...

Order picking has long been identified as a time- and cost-intensive task in almost every supply chain. One interesting approach to accelerate the picking process is to separate the warehouse into forward and reserve areas, where the forward area holds a limited amount of inventory for fast picking that is replenished by the stock in the reserve ar...

The population of most developed countries is aging; thus, the median age of the global workforce continues to rise. Human aging often results in a decline in physical and cognitive abilities, which may adversely affect the performance of labor-intensive manufacturing systems. Older workers embody profound experience and refined skills, which are s...

We announce an LDIC 2024 special session on “Sustainable Warehousing” and invite contributions addressing, for example, the following issues – with additional topics being highly welcome, too. #Analysis of economic sustainability of warehouse operations. #Design of efficient warehouse processes. #New technology implementation in warehouses. #Analys...

This open invited track at INCOM 2024 (28-30 August 2024, Vienna, Austria) aims to investigate the development of innovative approaches for integrating human factors in Industry 5.0 system design to create highly reliable and humanly sustainable production and logistics systems of the future. When you submit your paper to the IFAC system, you will...

Manual order picking (OP) is still the predominant warehousing system in brick-and-mortar grocery retailing, making human workers an integral part of operations. Besides human capabilities, the storage system design was found to impact performance, quality, and worker well-being as the major outcomes of OP systems. In warehousing practice, full-pal...

This paper presents an evaluation of the usability, functionality, and usefulness of the Warehouse Error Prevention (WEP) tool that consists of seven modules. The WEP tool is framed in a simple yes/no form, which can be used to identify human factors related to sources of pick errors in a warehouse. Thirty-three participants in 27 organisations fro...

Die Kommissionierung zählt zu den arbeits- und kostenintensivsten Prozessen in der Intralogistik. Kommissionierende werden dabei häufig hohen körperlichen Belastungen ausgesetzt, die das Risiko für Erkrankungen und Arbeitsausfälle erhöhen. Dieser Beitrag beleuchtet die beschriebene Problematik und stellt einfach umsetzbare Empfehlungen vor, um phys...

Warehouses are important nodes in almost every supply chain. Within warehouses, order picking is a crucial task that is extremely time- and cost-intensive. While order picking systems (OPSs) have traditionally been operated manually, new technologies offer opportunities for reducing the workload of warehouse workers. These technologies include auto...

In this paper, we develop an economic production quantity (EPQ) model with inventory rationing for a decaying item under deterministic conditions. Two demand classes are considered, and inventory rationing is implemented by introducing a critical level: when stock is below the critical level, low-priority demand is rejected. The cost model is devel...

In light of industry's apparent impact on the climate, sustainable manufacturing is gaining more and more attention both in academia and practice. One class of tools that can support companies in improving the sustainability of their manufacturing processes are energy-efficient scheduling models. This paper investigates the bi-objective job shop sc...

With the increasing market penetration of smart devices (smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets), various mobile applications (apps) have been developed to fulfill tasks in daily life. Recently, efforts have been made to develop apps to support human operators in industrial work. When apps installed on commercial devices are utilized, tasks that we...

Designing sustainable warehouse operations in the sense of the triple bottom line approach with environmental, social, and economic sustainability aspects is a key challenge for most brick-and-mortar grocery retailers. These retailers still rely on manual storage and material handling systems to process high-volume low-mix orders. They design picke...

Menschlichen Arbeitskräften kommt in Produktion und Logistik eine zentrale Rolle zu. Indem Routineaufgaben reduziert werden und der Fokus auf wertschöpfende Tätigkeiten gelegt wird, können das Engagement und die Leistung von Mitarbeitern gesteigert werden. Eine Technologie, die bei der Analyse manueller Tätigkeiten in Produktion und Logistik bisher...

Purpose In manual order picking systems, temporary workers are often employed to handle demand peaks. While this increases flexibility, it may hamper productivity, as they are usually unfamiliar with the processes and may have little experience. It is important for managers to understand how quickly inexperienced workers arrive at full productivity...

This open invited track at the 22nd World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control in Yokohama, JAPAN (2023) aims at investigating the development of innovative approaches for the integration of human factors in system design to create highly reliable and humanly sustainable production and logistics systems of the future. Topic...

Die Innovationsfähigkeit von Unternehmen bestimmt deren Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und wirtschaftlichen Erfolg. Dies trifft insbesondere auf innerbetriebliche logistische Prozesse zu, die einen direkten Einfluss auf Durchlaufzeiten und Kundenzufriedenheit haben. Innovationen im Rahmen einer „Logistik 4.0“ versprechen Prozessverbesserungen durch Automatis...

Die Einführung neuer Industrie 4.0-Technologien ändert durch Automatisierung und Digitalisierung die Arbeitsplatzmerkmale in vielen Bereichen der Industrie, v. a. der Produktion und Logistik. Je nach Ausprägung und Reifegrad werden diese Veränderungen von den Beschäftigten unterschiedlich wahrgenommen und können sowohl positive als auch negative Au...

Workers play essential roles in manufacturing and logistics. Releasing workers from routine tasks and enabling them to focus on creative, value-adding activities can enhance their performance and wellbeing, and it is also key to the successful implementation of Industry 4.0. One technology that can help identify patterns of worker-system interactio...

Restaurants often face strong pressure to reduce costs. Managers regularly respond by hiring temporary or part-time workers and by trying to reduce the size of the workforce as much as possible, which makes it difficult to develop a personnel schedule that provides sufficient service to the customers. The problem gets even more complicated if (freq...

Purpose Ensuring high on-shelf availability at low inventory costs remains an important challenge in retailing. Inaccurate inventory records, i.e. discrepancies between the stock records displayed in the inventory system and the stock quantity actually found in the retail store, have been identified as one of the most important drivers of retail st...

This paper develops new solution procedures for the order picker routing problem in U-shaped order picking zones with a movable depot, which has so far only been solved using simple heuristics. The paper presents the first exact solution approach, based on combinatorial Benders decomposition, as well as a heuristic approach based on dynamic program...

Electric vehicle scheduling is concerned with assigning a fleet of electrically powered vehicles to a set of timetabled trips. Since the range of these vehicles is limited, charging breaks need to be scheduled in-between trips, which require detours and time. This paper presents a novel electric vehicle scheduling problem with multiple charging sta...

Order picking is a key process in supply chains and a determinant of business success in many industries. Order picking is still performed manually by human operators in most companies; however, there are also increasingly more technologies available to automate order picking processes or to support human order pickers. One concept that has not att...

The increasing trend toward digitalization in logistics poses a significant managerial challenge, particularly by fundamentally changing the traditional, manual workplaces in intralogistics. Although intralogistics processes have, in some cases, already been automated or are supported by smart technologies, humans remain an inevitable part of futur...

To reach more customers, many manufacturers utilize multiple distribution channels consisting of a direct and an indirect sales channel. In particular, the strong growth of internet sales (or e-commerce) has driven companies to redesign their distribution channels to take advantage of the opportunities e-commerce offers. Opening a direct sales chan...

Order picking is a crucial contributor to corporate success within the value chain of companies. However, due to the high proportion of manual work, there is a risk of employees developing musculoskeletal disorders. In order to reduce this risk, it is vital to take ergonomics in planning concepts for order picking into account. For this purpose, er...

Order picking (OP) is a time- and labour-intensive operation in which human-system errors can lead to deficiencies in quality. This study aimed to identify human factors-related failure modes that cause human-system errors and quality deficits in OP. We conducted a systematic literature review and qualitative interviews with 38 order pickers employ...

This session aims at investigating the development of innovative approaches for the integration of human factors in system design to create highly reliable and humanly sustainable production and logistics systems of the future. When you submit your paper to the IFAC system, you will be required the following invitation code in order to associate...

Electricity demand-response programmes, such as the incentive-based and price-based programmes, have been used by utilities to induce customers to reduce their electricity consumption during peak periods. This study investigates the production decisions of a two-stage production system under these programmes in a situation where peak periods arrive...

This study examines the bullwhip effect in a manufacturing/remanufacturing supply chain consisting of one retailer, one manufacturer, one supplier, and one third-party collector. Products returned from the end users are converted to ‘as-good-as-new’ products through remanufacturing. Both manufactured and remanufactured products are used to meet the...

Due to demographic changes, the number of older workers employed in production and logistics environments increases continuously. During the execution of manual materials handling tasks that are still very common in these industries, especially older workers face an increased risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The substantial MSD...

We are concerned with the interaction and integration between demand forecasting and inventory control, in the context of supply chain operations. The majority of the literature is fragmented. Forecasting research more often than not assumes forecasting to be an end in itself, disregarding any subsequent stages of computation that are needed to tra...

The air freight supply chain consists of several agents. Among them are truckers, who ship freight between customers and airports, and airlines, who transport the freight in-between airports. Handling agents link the two: they receive freight from truckers, consolidate it and forward it to the airlines and vice versa. They need to organise and exec...

We apply “Systems Thinking” and Human Factors principles to develop a versatile approach to considering Human Factors in innovation projects like Industry 4.0 or Industry 5.0.

Drones have received growing attention in logistics recently. One of the most promising use cases for indoor drones in warehouses is stocktaking (Wawrla et al., 2019), which is the physical verification of the quantity of items stored in warehouses. This task is cost-intensive as it is typically performed by inventory control staff, who usually wal...

It is generally recognised that the present-value criterion should be preferred to the average-cost formulation in developing lot sizing models. Despite the advantages of the present-value measure, average-cost lot sizing models are far more widely applied. Because of the nature of the average-cost formulation, inventory carrying costs are evaluate...

Lighting influences both private and working life. At the same time, it is a critical contributor to energy consumption. Despite the various technical solutions for making lighting “smart,” today’s lighting systems are often kept simple, and they are frequently not adjusted to user behaviors. This is especially the case for production and logistics...

Die Kommissionierung weist in den meisten Unternehmen einen hohen Anteil an manueller Arbeit auf und ist sehr zeit- und kostenintensiv sowie fehleranfällig. Um diesen Prozess zu automatisieren, wurden autonome Roboter entwickelt. Eine modularisierte Lösung stellt die kollaborative Kommissionierung dar, welche die Vorteile der manuellen und roboterg...

This textbook presents an introduction into important planning problems in the area of production and supply chain management. The book focuses on mathematical models that can be used to solve decision problems that occur in practice. Topics covered in the book include material requirements planning, the planning of the production program, and the...

In der Luftfrachttransportkette bilden Luftfrachtabfertigungsgesellschaften das Bindeglied zwischen straßen- und flugzeuggebundenem Transport. Sie konsolidieren die aufkommende Fracht und bereiten diese auf den Weitertransport per LKW bzw. Flugzeug vor. Sie erfüllen somit eine Cross-Docking-Funktion. Die dabei anfallenden Prozesse sind häufig zeitk...

Learning curves, which express performance as a function of the cumulative number of repetitions when performing a given task, have a long tradition of supporting managerial decisions in production and operations management. Performance generally improves as the number of repetitions of a given task increases, with the latter being a primary proxy...

Warehouse order picking is a critical operation for every supply chain because of its direct influence on customer satisfaction and the high time investment that is usually required for completing it. Hence, improving order picking efficiency can enhance both customer satisfaction and warehouse throughput. The most critical step in order picking is...

Artificial lighting is a constant companion in everyday private and working life, influencing visibility in interior spaces as well as outdoors. In recent years, new technical solutions have extended traditional lighting systems to become ‘smart’. Different types of smart lighting systems are available on the market today, and researchers have conc...