An improved algorithm for cyclic flowshop scheduling in a robotic cell

Levner, Eugene; Kats, Vladimir; Levit, Vadim E.

doi:10.1016/s0377-2217(96)00272-x

Cited by 99 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…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).…”

Section: Pickup Criterionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sequencing and Scheduling in Robotic Cells: Recent Developments

Dawande

Geismar

Sethi

et al. 2005

J Sched

190

116

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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.We start by providing a classification scheme for robotic cell scheduling problems that is based on three characteristics: machine environment, processing restrictions, and objective function, and discuss the influence of these characteristics on the methods of analysis employed. In addition to reporting recent results on classical robotic cell scheduling problems, we include results on robotic cells with advanced features such as dual gripper robots, parallel machines, and multiple robots. Next, we examine implementation issues that have been addressed in the practice-oriented literature and detail the optimal policies to use under various combinations of conditions. We conclude by describing some important open problems in the field.

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Section: Pickup Criterionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For no-wait cells (Levner, Kats, and Levit, 1997), develop a polynomial algorithm for finding the minimum cycle time for Euclidean travel-time cells (problem RF m |(no-wait, E, cyclic-1)|µ). It uses the machine's processing times and the robot's travel-times to derive infeasible intervals for the cycle time.…”

Section: General Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sequencing and Scheduling in Robotic Cells: Recent Developments

Dawande

Geismar

Sethi

et al. 2005

J Sched

190

116

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Major applications include manufacturing systems (e.g. Levner et al 1997;Crama et al 2000;Seo and Lee 2002;Hall et al 2002;Karimi et al 2004) traffic and transportation (e.g. Odijk 1996) or chemical batch plants (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Often, this is restricted further if resources are only visited once by each batch (flow shop) or revisiting of resources is limited to a single robot (e.g. Chen et al 1998;Crama et al 2000;Levner et al 1997). The absence of buffers may reduce the complexity of the scheduling problem (Crama et al 2000;Chen et al 1998;Levner et al 1997), but this is an additional requirement if buffers exist for some of the resources but not for all of them, as it is the case for screening plants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chen et al 1998;Crama et al 2000;Levner et al 1997). The absence of buffers may reduce the complexity of the scheduling problem (Crama et al 2000;Chen et al 1998;Levner et al 1997), but this is an additional requirement if buffers exist for some of the resources but not for all of them, as it is the case for screening plants. Another additional requirement is the demand for due dates resp.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Throughput-Optimal Sequences for Cyclically Operated Plants

Mayer

Haus

Raisch

et al. 2008

Discrete Event Dyn Syst

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In this paper, we present a method to determine globally optimal schedules for cyclically operated plants where activities have to be scheduled on limited resources. In cyclic operation, a large number of entities is processed in an identical time scheme. For strictly cyclic operation, where the time offset between entities is also identical for all entities, the objective of maximizing throughput is equivalent to the minimization of the cycle time. The resulting scheduling problem is solved by deriving a mixed integer optimization problem from a discrete event model. The model includes timing constraints as well as open sequence decisions for the activities on the resources. In an extension, hierarchical nesting of cycles is considered, which often allows for schedules with improved throughput. The method is motivated by the application to high throughput screening plants, where a specific combination of requirements has to be obeyed (e.g. revisited resources, absence of buffers, or time window constraints).

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Cyclic scheduling in a robotic production line

Kats

Levner

2002

J. Sched.

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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.

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An improved algorithm for cyclic flowshop scheduling in a robotic cell

Cited by 99 publications

References 7 publications

Sequencing and Scheduling in Robotic Cells: Recent Developments

Sequencing and Scheduling in Robotic Cells: Recent Developments

Throughput-Optimal Sequences for Cyclically Operated Plants

Cyclic scheduling in a robotic production line

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