Warehouse optimization
November-December 2020

About the company

Totto is a Colombian multinational fashion company specialized in the design and production of bags, clothing and accessories. Its commercial operation spreads throughout South America, Mexico and Europe covering more than 57 countries and 600 stores.

The Challenge

This Challenge takes place in Tittan, Totto's main warehouse facility in the north of Bogotá. It is one of the most important in the country with 26000 square meters. The problem is twofold. First is the slotting problem : where to store each article in the warehouse. Then comes the picking problem: how to optimize the routes of the operators to prepare customers' orders. These two problems are connected and are key to minimize the overall lead-time between the reception of the orders and its delivery to the final customer.

50%

decrease in
picking distances

insights and propositions of improvement

3 sec

of runtime is enough to reach a 40% better solution

Winners of the Challenge

Jaiver Emilio Alvis

Sofia Delgado

Jaiver and Sofia’s software decreased overall distances by more than 50% in less than 25 seconds. They also proposed 6 improvements of Totto’s practices which combined achieve 70% reduction in the distances.

Mayra Andrea García

Juan Fernando Castro

Mayra and Juan Fernando’s software reduced by 44% the distances in a runtime of 3 seconds. Additionally, they found two insights to help the company decrease further the distances by 11% while using 15% less boxes.

Daniela Cruz Vargas

Daniel Felipe Rodriguez

Daniel and Daniela’s software with a runtime of 5 seconds reduces the overall distances by 43% while using less boxes than Totto. Their optimization method is based on a robust slotting. They also produced a Pareto-frontier diagram to compare multi-criteria solutions that translate into a variety of alternatives to improve the operation.

Luis David García

In less than 10 seconds Luis and Alejandro’s software reduces the total distances by 38%. By running two additional metaheuristics, the overall improvement reaches 48% in less than 15 minutes of execution time. Their algorithm optimizes the slotting by evaluating each SKU’s demand frequency and its specific contribution in every order.

Alejandro Montes

WHAT THE COMPANY SAYS

— Santiago Posada—

Director of Operations

Totto

“We saw the importance and the advantages of the experiences we had with the Challenges. They open different perspectives to help us go beyond our daily routine and see new aspects that we might have not been aware of. For the students, it is very valuable to be involved in the daily operation and get in touch with the reality they will face in their future engineering career. For us as a company, we always welcome these initiatives that definitely bring us applicable solutions.”

A word from the professor

This was the second Challenge we organized with Totto.

It was very interesting to tackle at the same time both problems : the slotting problem and the picking problem. Not only did it result in better overall solutions (as it is usually the case compared to solving optimization sub-problems separately) but it also helped discover some valuable insights. Especially in understanding how the two problems are interrelated and how they individually contribute to the overall lead-time.

Prof. Rabie Nait-Abdallah

Leader of the Challenge