摘要: 1. INTRODUCTION In any automatic warehousing system utilizing computer-controlled stacker cranes for high volume material handling, a class of decision problems can be identified. The function of the system is the automatic control of the storage and retrieval of items in a warehouse. As described in [3], and [5], incoming items are assigned to pallets, perhaps several items to a pallet, and a minicomputer assigns the pallet to a location in the storage racks. The material handling is done by automatic stacker cranes. When a request for an item in storage is received, the stacker crane retrieves the pallet. Once the material is removed from the pallet, the pallet may be stored for future use or returned to the storage location if it still contains items. Decision problems associated with automatic warehousing systems are classified in [5] as design and scheduling. Design questions involve such things as the number of stacker cranes used, physical dimensions of storage bays, number of storage bays, and physical dimensions Scheduling questions involve pallet assignment (assigning of the warehouse. items to pallets), storage assignment (assigning loaded pallets to storage locations), and interleaving (sequencing rules for storage and retrieve requests).