A scheduling problem in blocking hybrid flow shop robotic cells with multiple robots

Elmi A., Topaloglu Ş. A.

COMPUTERS & OPERATIONS RESEARCH, cilt.40, sa.10, ss.2543-2555, 2013 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 40 Sayı: 10
  • Basım Tarihi: 2013
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.cor.2013.01.024
  • Dergi Adı: COMPUTERS & OPERATIONS RESEARCH
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.2543-2555
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Robotic cell, Hybrid flow shop, Blocking, Multiple robots, Simulated Annealing, PARALLEL MACHINES, OPTIMIZATION, ALGORITHM
  • Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This paper addresses the robotic scheduling problem in blocking hybrid flow shop cells that consider multiple part types, unrelated parallel machines, multiple robots and machine eligibility constraints. Initially, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is proposed to minimize the makespan for this problem. Due to the complexity of the model, a simulated annealing (SA) based solution approach is developed for its solution. To increase the efficiency of the SA algorithm, a new neighborhood structure based on block properties is applied. The performance of the proposed SA is assessed over a set of randomly generated instances. The computational results demonstrate that the SA algorithm is effective with the employed neighborhood structure. Additionally, this study shows that the appropriate number of robots depends on the sequence of processing operations to be performed at each stage. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.