Two-machine Flow Shop Problems with a Single Server

• Main Authors: LIM, Andrew, RODRIGUES, Brian, WANG, Caixia
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2006
• Subjects: Machine scheduling; Flow shop; Heuristics; Robots; Operations and Supply Chain Management
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/559; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10951-006-8787-z
• Institution: Singapore Management University

A great deal of work has been done to analyze the problem of robot move sequencing and part scheduling in robotic flowshop cells. We examine the recent developments in this literature. A robotic flowshop cell consists of a number of processing stages served by one or more robots. Each stage has one or more machines that perform that stage’s processing. Types of robotic cells are differentiated from one another by certain characteristics, including robot type, robot travel-time, number of robots, types of parts processed, and use of parallel machines within stages. We focus on cyclic production of parts. A cycle is specified by a repeatable sequence of robot moves designed to transfer a set of parts between the machines for their processing.