Carousel systems can be classified into unidirectional and bidirectional carousel, depending on the hardware structure. Bidirectional carousels again can be classified into reversible and irreversible carousel, depending on whether the reversal of direction is allowed or not during the process of an order. In this study, single carousel served by one operator is considered. Analytical models for the rotation distance to process an order of size are developed for unidirectional and irreversible bidirectional cases. For reversible bidirectional and Nearest Neighbor Heuristic cases, simulation results of the average rotation distance are presented. Since the throughput capacity of carousel systems also depends upon the picking time of the operator; order size; and the rotation speed of carousel, the model considers the above three factors to express the throughput capacity of single carousel systems.