Cyclic scheduling in a robotic production line

Abstract

SUMMARYThe solution of cyclic scheduling problems is part of the classical repertoire on scheduling algorithms. We consider a problem of cyclic scheduling of identical parts in a production line where transportation of the parts between machines is performed by several robots. The problem is to ÿnd co-ordinated movements of the parts and robots in the line with the no-wait constraints imported; the objective is to maximize the throughput rate. Unlike many previous algorithms which are either heuristic or at best solve the single-robot version of the problem in O(m 4 log m) time, the proposed algorithm provides an exact solution for the more complicated case of multiple robots and solves the problem in O(m 3 log m) time, where m denotes the number of machines in the line.

Sequencing and Scheduling in Robotic Cells: Recent Developments

“…Such conditions are commonly seen in steel manufacturing or plastic molding, where the raw material must maintain a certain temperature, or in food canning to ensure freshness (Hall and Sriskandarajah, 1996). Results for no-wait cells can be found in Agnetis (2000), Agnetis and Pacciarelli (2000), Che, Chu, and Levner (2003), Hall and Sriskandarajah (1996), Kats and Levner (2002), and Levner, Kats, and Levit (1997).…”

Cyclic Flowshop Scheduling with Operators and Robots: Vyacheslav Tanaev’s Vision and Lasting Contributions

“…The strongly polynomial algorithms are marked with "*" and branchand-bound with " bb ". The case when all processing times are given numbers is referred to as the fixed processing times; the case when the processing times are to be chosen Kats and Levner (2002), [26] Kats et al (1999), [29] Levner and Kats (1995), [30] Levner et al (1997), [31] Levner et al (1998), [32] Leung and Levner (2006), [33] Liu and Jiang (2005), [39] Suprunenko et al (1962), [41] Tanaev and Shkurba (1975) from pre-specified intervals is called the interval processing times. Tanaev (1964) proved that in a no-wait flow line served by an operator there exists a periodic schedule which is optimal, that is, a schedule guaranteeing the maximum rate of production output among all (possibly infinitely long) schedules.…”

Sequencing and scheduling in a three-machine robotic cell

“…Many industries use robotic cells to cyclically produce multiple part types especially in the semiconductor manufacturing (Wood 1996, Venkatesh et al 1997Akcalt et al 2001, Geismar et al 2004, Kumar et al 2005) and electroplating line fields (Song et al 1993, Lei and Wang 1994, Perkinson et al 1994, 1996, Chen et al 1998, Kats et al 1999, Che et al 2002, 2003, Kats and Levner 2002, Liu et al 2002, Leung et al 2004.…”