Order-Picking Efficiency in E-Commerce Warehouses: A Literature Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Good luck!

Author Response

Reviewer:1

1. Good luck!

Response: Thank you!

Reviewer 2 Report

Abstract

The abstract is no good. It should concisely outline the article purpose, methodology and contribution. Also the observations on the future research should be general, not limited the the authors (we can... or we could...)

Keywords

Since RMFS is included, why not AS/RS?

1. Introduction

The authors claim that "According to the relevant literature from 2020 to 2022, no scholar has reviewed the e-commerce-related literature in the past three years from the two perspectives of “picker-to-parts” and “parts-to-picker” picking systems." However, in the following sentence they say "During that time period, many scholars have conducted in-depth research on order picking in e-commerce warehouses in the two kinds of picking systems.", which implies that both systems have been addressed by many researchers. It is not quite clear what is the contribution of the authors - please make it more specific.

Also, future tense should not be used (this paper will...), but passive or past tense.

2. Order picking

There is no need to quote generally known definitions and facts, as this is not a text book. Instead of that, the authors should focus to the issues of application of order picking strategies, performance evaluation indicators and optimization goals, that have been addressed in the literature.

3. Literature Collection and Research Framework

This chapter actually explains the methodology, so it should be titled as such. Also, suggest to shift it immediately after the Introduction chapter, while the chapter 2. Order picking may be integrated into the Introduction chapter, having in mind the comments above. I do not insist on this, but it would make the structure of the paper more comprehensive and easy to follow.

Author Response

Reviewer: 2

1. The abstract is no good. It should concisely outline the article purpose, methodology and contribution. 

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. In order to express the research purpose, methodology and contribution of this paper more clearly, we rewrote the second and third sentences in the abstract (page1, line15-20).

2. Also the observations on the future research should be general, not limited the authors (we can... or we could...)

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We apologize for not using the right expression in this sentence. To correct this error, we rewrote the expression of this sentence (page1, line25). In addition, we also combined four sentences about future research directions into one sentence (page1, line25-32).

3. Since RMFS is included, why not AS/RS?

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We apologize for missing a keyword. To correct this error, we have added AS/RS in the keyword section (page1, line33).

4. The authors claim that "According to the relevant literature from 2020 to 2022, no scholar has reviewed the e-commerce-related literature in the past three years from the two perspectives of “picker-to-parts” and “parts-to-picker” picking systems." However, in the following sentence they say "During that time period, many scholars have conducted in-depth research on order picking in e-commerce warehouses in the two kinds of picking systems.", which implies that both systems have been addressed by many researchers. It is not quite clear what is the contribution of the authors - please make it more specific.

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We apologize for not clearly expressing the meaning of these two sentences. To correct this error, we have revised the sentences of this paragraph to express our research contribution more clearly (page2, line88-106). In addition, if other sentences in the other chapters are affected by the modification of this paragraph, we have also made corresponding modifications (page6, line205-206; page8, line246-258; page26, line607-613).

5. Also, future tense should not be used (this paper will...), but passive or past tense.

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We apologize for not using the proper tense in this sentence. To correct this error, we use the past tense in this sentence (page2, line94).

6. There is no need to quote generally known definitions and facts, as this is not a text book. 

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. It is true that some definitions and facts in this paper are generally known. In order to correct this error, we simplified the content and deleted the figure in the “2.1. Order Picking” (page3-4, line115-145), and moved this part to the introduction according to your opinion 9 (page2, line75-87).

7. Instead of that, the authors should focus to the issues of application of order picking strategies, performance evaluation indicators and optimization goals, that have been addressed in the literature.

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have supplemented the contents in order picking strategies. After structural adjustment, the supplementary content in “Order Picking Strategies” is mainly about the advantages and disadvantages of relevant picking strategies in the application process (page12, line279-320).

8. This chapter actually explains the methodology, so it should be titled as such. 

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. To correct this error, we have changed the title of this chapter to methodology (page5, line202).

9. Also, suggest to shift it immediately after the Introduction chapter, while the chapter 2. Order picking may be integrated into the Introduction chapter, having in mind the comments above. I do not insist on this, but it would make the structure of the paper more comprehensive and easy to follow.

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. The solution you proposed is really more comprehensive and easier to follow. In order to modify the framework of the three chapters, we first integrated the contents of the “2.1. Order Picking” into the introduction after modification (page2, line75-87). Secondly, we moved “2.2. Order Picking System Classification”, “2.3. Order Picking Strategies” and “2.4. Order Picking Related Optimization Indicators” before “3.5. Research Framework”. Reorganize the four parts into Chapter 3 and name it “3. Construct the Research Framework” (page12-14, line260-351). And the sentence in “3.5. Research Framework” has been modified (page13-14, line334-352). Finally, the remaining part of the original Chapter 3 is reorganized into a new Chapter 2 after the title is modified (page5-11, line202-260). And the title number and picture number in the text have been changed. In the introduction, the content of the whole article is also revised (page3, line207-113).