Throughput optimization in robotic cells (Q2373612)

This book presents results on sequencing and scheduling problems arising in robotic cells. Automation in manufacturing has become an important factor in order to increase the traditionally conflicting objectives flexibility and productivity. Flexibility addresses the problem of producing a number of distinct orders in a job shop environment with respect to different production alternatives and in order to meet some objectives. Productivity refers high speed production, high machine utilization, and small storage requirements. Increasing job shop productivity while maintaining production flexibility has become a desired goal. As a result, the introduction of concepts related to automated manufacturing and robotics as well as an increased progress in information technology became an important issue to control the flow of orders in a factory. A problem that frequently arises in flexible manufacturing planning is the process of dividing a manufacturing system into machine (robotic) cells by grouping machines and parts, e.g. based on the similarity of part manufacturing characteristics. Parts that have to undergo similar operations require the same set of machines and are grouped together to part families each of which is assigned to the corresponding machines forming a machine cell. This is the philosophy of group technology. Tooling, loading and scheduling decisions within each cell should preferably be made as far as possible independently of the other cells. This requires that machine groups and part families are as homogeneous as possible and that a minimum interference occurs between cells in order to reduce transportation and setup costs (see Chapter 1). Chapter 2 presents an extension of the well-known three field problem classification scheme for robotic cells. Cyclic production (Chapter 3) defines the production of (identical) parts by repeating a fixed sequence of robot moves. The chapter discusses the robot's waiting time at the machines and computation of the cycle time for a given cycle as well as the computation of bounds and the presentation of approximation algorithms. Dual-gripper robots can hold two parts simultaneously. While one gripper is empty the other one holds a part for the next machine that is still occupied. With one move of the robot arm the finished part can be removed from the machine and the new part can be loaded. Dual-gripper robots lead to an increased throughput in cells on the cost of more complicated sequencing and scheduling problems. Chapter 4 compares results for single and dual gripper robots, contains results about efficiently solvable cases or presents results about single-gripper robots with machine buffers. Chapter 5 discusses a (single- and dual-gripper) robotic cell with parallel machines which is comparable to a flexible flow shop with blocking. Chapters 6 and 7 consider single-and dual-gripper robots that process lots containing different types of parts with different processing times at the machines. Special cases for two and three machines as well as complexity results are contained in more detail. While Chapter 8 is on multiple robot cells, Chapter 9 treats the no-wait case, i.e. there is no waiting time for a part after completion of processing on a machine and the process start of the immediate successor operation. A last chapter with open problems and two appendices followed by a list of 174 concludes the book. This book is a comprehensive approach for scheduling in flexible manufacturing of robotic cells. The book is equally interesting for use in university courses as well as for practitioners. I am not aware of any other book covering such a huge variety of practically relevant aspects and quantitative models on robotic cell planning and scheduling.