Operation design of a robot logistics system considering demand fluctuations in the hotel industry
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
ISSN: 0959-6119
Article publication date: 8 June 2023
Issue publication date: 2 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider three factors, namely, intra-week demand fluctuations, interrelationship between the number of robots and order scheduling and conflicting objectives (i.e. cost minimization and customer satisfaction maximization), to optimize the robot logistics system.
Design/methodology/approach
The number of robots and the sequence of delivery orders are first optimized using the heuristic algorithm NSGACoDEM, which is designed using genetic algorithm and composite difference evolution. The superiority of this method is then confirmed by a case study of a four-star grade hotel in South Korea and several comparative experiments.
Findings
Two performance metrics reveal the superior performance of the proposed approach compared to other baseline approaches. Results of comparative experiments found that the consideration of three influencing factors in the operation design of a robot logistic system can effectively balance cost and customer satisfaction over the course of a week in hotel operation and optimize robot scheduling flexibility.
Practical implications
The results of this study reveal that numerous factors (e.g. intra-week demand fluctuations) can optimize the performance efficiency of robots. The proposed algorithm can be used by hotels to overcome the influence of intra-week demand fluctuations on robot scheduling flexibility effectively and thereby enhance work efficiency.
Originality/value
The design of a novel algorithm in this study entails enhancing the current robot logistics system. This algorithm can successfully manage cost and customer satisfaction during off-seasons and peak seasons in the hotel industry while offering diversified schemes to various types of hotels.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Guanghua Talent Project of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and received grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.71701167) and Humanities and Social Science Projects of the Ministry of Education of China (No. 17YJC630078).
Citation
Liu, J., Gu, T. and Liao, Z. (2024), "Operation design of a robot logistics system considering demand fluctuations in the hotel industry", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 113-135. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-08-2022-0968
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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