Distribution of physical workload with an ergonomic order assignment

With their variety of skills and competencies, humans are an important resource in logistics. To prevent workload-related diseases, improve work design, and maintain productivity in manual processes as order picking, an optimization approach to integrate ergonomics into resource planning is introduced. The objective is to evenly distribute physical workload among workers in a shift. Applying the Design Science Research Method, this paper presents the conceptual process design of the developed ergonomic order assignment. An assessment of the individual workload per order and worker combination is introduced, considering individual characteristics of typical orders. It is followed by a reference implementation.