Laurens Penners wins Material Handling Thesis Award

At the opening day of the Logistica Fair, Tuesday 10 November 2015, Laurens Penners, master student at Eindhoven University of Technology won the 2014/2015 Material Handling Master thesis award.

Laurens Penners wrote a thesis on vehicle-based storage and retrieval systems, developed by many different suppliers.  Such systems are very popular in ecommerce warehouses. He studied congestion free routing strategies and cross-aisle layouts for the Adapto system of Vanderlande. The methods he developed outperform the current routing policies used.

Zone picking systems

The second and third prize were shared between Alina Stroie of Erasmus University Rotterdam and Gréanne Leeftink of Twente University. Alina wrote her thesis on robust design rules for zone picking systems, determining the optimal number of segments and zones per segment to minimize cost and maximize performance, depending on storage and order profiles. In general, the number of segments and zones per segment should be as small as the system allows.

Scheduling policies

Gréanne wrote her thesis at the University Medical Center in Utrecht on scheduling policies for a diagnostic machine that analyses tissue samples for cancer. Since diagnostics have to be carried out rapidly and the machine works with batches, scheduling has to be carried out carefully. She was able to substantially reduce lead times.

Great quality

The jury, consisting of 6 professors and practitioners, and chaired by René de Koster, of Erasmus University, admired the great quality of this year’s candidate theses. Next to theoretic contribution, also the practical impact was a main criterion, and all finalists had contributions impacting the field and allowing immediate implementation.

For more information, contact the MHF-secretariat.