Development of a key performance indicator framework for automated warehouse systems

A Warehouse Management System (WMS) is a fundamental part of the entire supply chain’s management system. Considering the importance of storing and retrieving goods, the current tendency is moving towards the complete automation of WMS and the application of new technologies. So far, many studies have been conducted on this topic, and all of them use a key performance indicator (KPI) system to evaluate the performance of the analyzed WMS. However, each study uses only a subset of KPIs, and no previous work addressed the issue of defining a formal framework for the comprehensive evaluation of automated warehouses. The aim of this paper is the definition of a formal KPI evaluation framework for WMS. The framework definition is designed following three steps: (i) the identification of available KPIs based on a systemic literature review, (ii) the ranking of KPIs based on the frequency of use in scientific research, and (iii) the classification of KPIs based both on their impact domain (economic, social or environmental) and on the company hierarchical level in which they are used.