Student Competition Problem IS RELEASED! Don’t let your competition get an early lead!

Gain Resume Skills, Win Cash

Gain real world and resume building experience with simulation by solving problems you will encounter on the job. Best of all you can win CASH prizes totaling $3250, real world experience to show employers, and of course, bragging rights! Because of the success of the competition, we have added a 4th place! Read more.

Interactive Learning Experience

Use this competition within your class to guide your students through the process of using simulation to solve a real world problem. Give them the real world experience and confidence to be able to meet the demands of their new careers. You can earn bragging rights for you and your university if you’re part of the winning team! All participating instructors receive FREE STUDENT SOFTWARE for their class for the duration of the competition. Don’t teach Simio? Apply for our FREE ACADEMIC GRANT to get the software! Read more.

The Miebach Distribution Center (MDC) is a warehouse that stores footwear and apparel items which are shipped as outgoing orders to customers. These orders range from “singles” which are single consumer purchases to multi-item orders. MDC is noticing an increase in orders as well as a diversification of order types. Warehouse planners and mangers are looking to improve picking operation strategy to meet their customer delivery goals. The planners and managers must determine how to balance the workload across the warehouse system, which includes taking into consideration the teams that work downstream of picking. The scope of this project starts with picking units from shelved storage and ends with packing and shipping the orders.

Due to the uptick of orders, the MDC is transitioning into wave picking management methodology or “waving” to collect the units from their storage locations. To wave the MDC warehouse, orders are grouped together, and the grouped orders’ units are split up by their corresponding warehouse zone storage location. The zone is picked by the workers and the units collected are moved to a staging area. Once all units from a wave reach the staging area, the wave is sent to packing and shipping. The wave is organized back into orders and shipped out.

The MDC is searching for recommendations for the best waving and picking strategy for managing their warehouse which optimizes labor utilization and minimizes missed customer delivery goals. The wave picking strategy should include the ideal size of a wave based on order attributes, unit locations, and acceptable picking receptacle. The criteria that places orders in the same wave should also be investigated. Additionally, the MDC would like to identify any warehouse re-zoning that would benefit the waving processes. The MDC is hoping for a set of rules that helps future formulation of waves.

Judging will be done by an independent panel of judges drawn internationally from both academic and commercial simulation practitioners. Judging Criteria is based on a 10-item scoring system where each item is worth between 0.0 and 3.0 points. Read more.

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