B1986 - Industrial Logistics P

Learning outcomes

The course focuses on the integration of physical and information flows for the design, management and control of an organisation’s operational processes in both manufacturing and service contexts. Particular emphasis is placed on inbound logistics from suppliers, outbound logistics to customers, and internal production and intralogistics processes.

The course aims to provide students with the fundamental principles and quantitative methods required to analyse, select, design and manage integrated, efficient and flexible logistics systems. The systems considered include manufacturing and assembly operations, material handling, transportation, warehousing and storage, as well as product distribution networks.

Logistics is examined from a supply chain perspective, as the coordinated management of materials, products and information from sourcing and production through distribution and delivery, including end-of-life activities such as disposal, reuse and recycling. The effective integration of these flows is essential to achieve high levels of product and service quality, reduce lead times and operating costs, and meet customer service requirements.

Students will acquire the analytical and methodological skills needed to design and manage logistics systems capable of adapting to demand variability, changes in product mix and increasing levels of customisation. The course also introduces quantitative modelling and simulation techniques for the analysis, evaluation and improvement of manufacturing, assembly, material handling and storage systems.

In addition to technical knowledge, the course contributes to the development of professional, analytical and managerial skills relevant to careers in logistics, operations management, supply chain management and related fields.

Course contents

Prerequisites

No prior knowledge of logistics or operations management is required.

Lectures, tutorials, and examinations are conducted in Italian. Therefore, proficiency in spoken and written Italian is required. Selected teaching materials and scientific references may be provided in English

 

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• explain the role of logistics and operations management in modern manufacturing systems;

• analyse the technologies, methodologies, and analytical models supporting the design, management, and control of production and logistics systems;

• apply quantitative methods to the design and sizing of packaging systems;

• design and evaluate Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS);

• select and configure material handling systems according to technical and operational requirements;

• analyse and design warehousing and storage systems using established engineering methodologies;

• design and optimise order-picking systems through analytical models and performance evaluation techniques.

Course Contents

Overview and Evolution of Production Systems

Definition and evolution of the logistics function. Industrial logistics concepts through examples and case studies. Integration and flexibility in manufacturing systems. The role of logistics in achieving production system integration and flexibility. Automated factories and the Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 paradigms. Introduction to facility layout design.

Product Innovation, Packaging, and Logistics

Product development: research, development, and engineering. The product–packaging system. Packaging functions, classification, and volumetric efficiency. Pallets and EUR-EPAL standards. Unit-load formation and palletized loads. Basic module concept and compatibility with EPAL, ISO 1, and ISO 2 standards. Compatibility of palletized unit loads with containers and road vehicles. Pooling systems for pallets and reusable plastic containers (RPCs), including pallet exchange, deferred exchange, and rental services. Distribution system case studies and comparative analyses. Introduction to environmental impact assessment and monitoring.

Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS)

Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) and their main components: machine tools and work centres, part-handling systems, pallets, fixtures, feeding systems, and tool management. Manufacturing system configurations and layouts. Design methodologies for FMS, including resource utilisation analysis, manufacturing cell sizing, determination of the required number of machines and work centres, and layout evaluation. Fixtures and pallets: loading and unloading operations and management of concealed (masked) times. Determination of the required numbers of machines, work centres, and operators.

Conventional Material Handling Systems

Industrial trucks, including pallet trucks, counterbalanced forklifts, reach trucks, and bilateral and trilateral forklifts. Performance evaluation based on travel speed, manoeuvrability, lifting height, footprint, and minimum turning radius. Introduction to fixed conveyor systems.

Flexible Material Handling Systems: Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs)

Architecture and computer control of Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) systems. Guidance technologies, including inductive, laser, Cartesian, rail, optical, and vision-based guidance systems. Performance characteristics and classification. Design criteria for AGV-based material handling systems. Static and heuristic balancing methods, linear optimisation models for fleet balancing, objective functions, and constraints. Determination of the required fleet size to satisfy system demand. Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs): operating principles and comparison with AGV systems.

Manual Warehousing and Storage Systems

Warehouse functions and key performance indicators. Storage methods and warehouse typologies for unit loads, split-case picking, parcels, miscellaneous materials, and special products. ABC analysis for storage and handling activities, including the Cube-per-Order Index (COI). Inventory sizing using risk curves. Storage assignment policies, including random storage, shared storage, dedicated storage, and class-based storage, together with warehouse capacity sizing. Class-based storage design based on the COI methodology. Unit-load versus less-than-unit-load warehouses and full-pallet versus split-case picking systems. Design of forklift-operated warehouses, cycle time analysis, sizing of material handling fleets, and selection of rack storage systems.

Automated High-Density Warehouse Systems

Rack-supported (self-supporting) automated warehouses served by stacker cranes: functions, characteristics, and design criteria. Determination of the number of aisles and stacker cranes. Throughput analysis for single-command and dual-command operating cycles according to the FEM 9.851 standard. Overview of advanced automated storage technologies, including shuttle-based storage and retrieval systems (SBS/RS), vertical lift modules (VLMs), four-way shuttle systems, and related solutions.

Order Picking Systems

Introduction to less-than-unit-load order picking. Order-picking systems and warehouse design methodologies. Storage allocation models for determining the optimal capacity of the picking area (fast-pick or primary area) and reserve storage area, including the Equal Space (EQS), Equal Time (EQT), and Optimal (OPT) strategies. The University of Bologna methodology for order-picking warehouse design based on rank-based approaches, similarity indices, cluster analysis, and clustering algorithms, including CLINK, SLINK, and related methods.

Industrial Case Studies and Numerical Applications

Industrial case studies illustrating the application of the methodologies presented during the course, together with guided numerical exercises.

Guest Seminars

Seminars delivered by managers and technical experts from leading industrial companies, presenting real-world applications of logistics and manufacturing system design.

Readings/Bibliography

• A.PARESCHI, E.FERRARI, A.PERSONA, A.REGATTIERI, Logistica Integrata e Flessibile, Ed.Esculapio, 2011

Other recommended readings:

Supplementary handouts are delivered beforehand by the teacher. They deal with issues and topics not illustrated in the reference text (models and solution methods, exercises, case studies, computer programs, etc.). They are available in virtual.unibo.it

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Useful references (not object of the final exam):

• MANZINI R., ACCORSI R., Warehousing and Material Handling Systems for the Digital Industry. The New Challenges for the Digital Circular Economy, SPRINGER 2024
  
• MANZINI R. (ED.), Warehousing in the Global Supply Chain. Advanced Models, Tools and Applications for Storage Systems, SPRINGER London UK, ISBN 978-1-4471-2273-9. http://www.springer.com/engineering/production+engineering/book/978-1-4471-2273-9
• MANZINI R., ACCORSI R., BATTARRA I., FERRARI E., 2024, Systematic Warehouse Planning-SWP: A Complete Procedure for the Assessment of an Order-Picking System. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50273-6_7
• ACCORSI, Riccardo; MANZINI, Riccardo, eds. Sustainable Food Supply Chains: Planning, Design, and Control through Interdisciplinary Methodologies. London: Academic Press–Elsevier, 2019. ISBN 978-0-12-813411-5.
• PARESCHI A., Impianti industriali, Collana Progetto Leonardo, Ed. Esculapio, Bologna, 2007
  
• R.MANZINI, E.FERRARI, H.PHAM, A.REGATTIERI, Maintenance for Industrial Systems, 2010, Springer London UK. http://www.springer.com/engineering/production+eng/book/978-1-84882-574-1
• MANZINI R., REGATTIERI A., Manutenzione dei Sistemi di Produzione, Progetto Leonardo,vEsculapio, Bologna, 2010.
• TOMPKINS, James A.; WHITE, John A.; BOZER, Yavuz A.; TANCHOCO, J. M. A. Facilities Planning. 5th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2024. ISBN 978-1-119-69960-6.
• FRANCIS, R. L.; McGINNIS, L. F.; WHITE, J. A. Facility Layout and Location: An Analytical Approach. 2nd ed. Pearson Education, 2015. ISBN 978-9332551787
  
• S. HERAGU, “Facilities Design”, Ed. CRC PRESS, 2022
• JACOBS, F. Robert; BERRY, William Lee; WHYBARK, D. Clay; VOLLMANN, Thomas E. Manufacturing Planning and Control for Supply Chain Management: The CPIM Reference. 3rd ed. McGraw Hill, 2024. ISBN 978-1-265-13851-6
  

from international journals:

• Battarra, I.; Baykal-Gürsoy, M.; Manzini, R.
  “A multi-queue single-server model for storage and retrieval requests in a tier-captive AVS/RS.”
  Computers & Industrial Engineering, vol. 211, art. 111650, 2026.
• Lupi, G.; Accorsi, R.; Battarra, I.; Manzini, R.; Sirri, G.
  “Assignment strategy and lane depth in homogeneous multi-deep tier-captive AVS/RS.”
  International Journal of Production Research, vol. 63, n. 19, pp. 7110–7128, 2025.
• Lupi, G.; Accorsi, R.; Battarra, I.; Manzini, R.; Sirri, G.
  Space efficiency and throughput performance in AVS/RS under variant lane depths.The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 131(3–4), 1449–1466, 2024
• Battarra, I.; Accorsi, R.; Manzini, R.; Sirri, G.
  Hybrid model for the design of a deep-lane multisatellite AVS/RS.The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s00170-022-09375-x
• Accorsi, R.; Baruffaldi, G.; Manzini, R. Picking efficiency and stock safety: A bi-objective storage assignment policy for temperature-sensitive products. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 115, 240–252, 2018.

 

Teaching methods

Theoretical lessons are completed by a serie of exercises and applications to allow the student to be familiar with the common design practices.

Assessment methods

The final examination is designed to assess the achievement of the following learning outcomes:

• to provide students with the general criteria and the corresponding mathematical methods required to support decision-making in industrial logistics. These decisions concern the selection, design, and management of integrated and flexible logistics systems capable of coordinating physical and information flows in order to ensure a high level of product and customer service quality, reduce response times and production costs, and respond flexibly to the continuous changes in the product range resulting from the variability and customization of customer demand;
• to apply the models and operational tools presented during the course to numerical examples and case studies.

The final assessment consists of a written examination including both numerical exercises and theoretical questions.

As the final examination will take place in a computer laboratory, all students are required to complete Modules 1 and 2 of the online training course on health and safety in study environments in advance:
https://elearning-sicurezza.unibo.it/

 

STUDENTS WITH SPECIFIC LEARNING DISABILITIES OR TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT DISABILITIES

Students are strongly advised to contact the relevant University office well in advance:
https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/it

The office will propose any appropriate accommodations for the students concerned. Such accommodations must, in any case, be submitted to the lecturer for approval at least 15 days in advance. The lecturer will assess their suitability, also in relation to the learning outcomes of the course.

 

USE OF GENERATIVE AI IN EXAMINATIONS

With regard to the assessment of learning, the use of AI is prohibited. Any use of AI constitutes a breach of academic integrity.

 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TAKING THE FINAL EXAMINATION

In accordance with the University Code of Ethics, students are reminded to act with the utmost integrity.

Any activity aimed at improperly altering the outcome of the examination is prohibited, including, for example, cheating, plagiarism, accessing online teaching materials, or using unauthorized AI tools. In particular, merely possessing unauthorized equipment or materials during the examination will result in the immediate invalidation of the exam paper and the matter being reported to the relevant University offices.

Any conduct in breach of this prohibition may lead to disciplinary proceedings or, where the conduct constitutes a criminal offence, to reports being made to the competent authorities.

 

Teaching tools

During the course several practices and numerical applications will be illustrated in order to apply models and solution methods. In addition, some case studies and supporting decision tools and software will be illustrated.

Teaching materials

Teaching materials not illustrated on the recommended text book will be available to the student electronically via the Internet. To get the educational material: virtuale.unibo.it
Username and password are reserved for UniBO students.
Language of instruction: Italian
Office hours: See the teachers' web site for details

Links to further information

https://site.unibo.it/foodsupplychain/en

Office hours

See the website of Riccardo Manzini