Case study: evaluation of the automation of material handling with mobile robots

Abstract

The automation of material handling is one of the solutions that many companies are relying on to reach their goals related to productivity increment, floor space optimization, higher standards for factory’s safety, and allocation of workers to value-added activities. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the current state of the material flow of finished goods for an automotive parts supplier plant and the technology available on the market to verify if it was worthwhile to invest in material handling automation. The analysis included the use of discrete event simulation to evaluate the different layout approaches combined with the mobile robots’ performance. It was proven that the tandem layout was the most beneficial approach to the analyzed plant’s reality with a minimal of three robots. Improvements to the material flow and automation of the labeling process were also proposed based on the study.

Application of heavy-duty material handling robot in the transportation system of automobile press line

“…In this paper, the traditional automobile stamping workshop is transformed, and a material handling robot with a load capacity of 20T is designed to cope with the changes in the nature of the workshop, which realizes the unmanned automation of large and complex molds between the uncoiling line, sheet buffer area, and stamping line of the entire stamping workshop. Transportation has increased the speed of the stamping line by 25% and the processing accuracy by 33%, which is of great significance to the intelligent transformation of industrial manufacturing enterprises [2][3][4].…”

Navigation and docking maneuvers control of an autonomous omnidirectional platform in a dynamic internal logistics environment

“…Mobile robots are being applied as internal logistics solutions in today's industries [6], providing flexibility and efficiency across industrial processes. From these, AMRs (Autonomous Mobile Robots) are state-of-art in the development and research of internal logistics solutions [7] due to their real-time adaptive capacities [8]. These concepts converge to current industrial requirements, driving research and development of new motion control methods, with a focus on dynamical systems [9].…”