Paper Info
Title
An experimental investigation of material handling in flexible manufacturing using computer simulation
Abstract
An important design issue for the automated factory of the future is the material handling function. Flexible manufacturing facilities demand an equally flexible material handling system. Material handling can have a significant impact on work-in-process inventory, and capacity requirements as well as material flow considerations. Since flexible manufacturing facilities are typically costly to design, install and maintain, direct experimentation is not feasible and analytical models give only an approximate solution at best. Due to the magnitude of the economics, even small errors of approximation can be significant. Clearly, computer simulation can be a very effective design and analysis tool for the investigation of material handling processes. This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation of alternative control procedures for dispatching driverless (automated) vehicles to transport "move orders" between manufacturing cells or "islands". Dispatching methodologies examined include first-come-first-served, a dynamic adaptation of the assignment problem and a dynamic programming approach which seeks an optimal tour over the next two, three, etc. moves. Both the value of such optimum-seeking dispatching rules and the appropriateness of computer simulation as an effective design tool are discussed.
Year
DOI
Venue
1982
10.5555/1035909.1035931
Winter Simulation Conference
Field
DocType
Volume
Dynamic programming,Factory,Simulation,Computer science,Design tool,Manufacturing engineering,Material flow,Assignment problem,Material handling,Approximate solution,Technical report
Conference
2
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
978-0-911801-07-1
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
1
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Eric L. Blair141.60