Human Factors in Order Picking System Design: A Content Analysis

Order picking is considered as one of the most labor- and time-intensive processes in internal logistics. Over the last decades, researchers have developed various planning models that help to increase the efficiency of order picking systems, while important human characteristics of the order pickers have widely been ignored. This paper presents an attempt to systematically evaluate the literature on order picking planning models and uses a content analysis approach to analyses the literature sample with a special focus on human factors. The results show a clear research gap in considering human factors aspects in order picking planning models.