Scheduling multiple parts in hybrid flow shop robotic cells served by a single robot

Atabak Elmi, Seyda Topaloglu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

42 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper addresses the robotic scheduling problem in blocking hybrid flow shop cells that consider multiple part-types, different speed parallel machines at each stage, machine eligibility constraints and a single transportation robot to move the parts between stages. Initially, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is proposed to minimise the makespan. Due to the complexity of the model, a simulated annealing (SA)-based solution approach is developed to solve the problem. This approach uses both simple insertion method and a new neighbourhood structure based on block properties while generating neighbour solutions, which yields two different SA algorithms respectively. The performance of proposed SA approach is assessed over a set of randomly generated instances. The computational results demonstrate that the SA algorithm is effective with the employed neighbourhood structure for this problem.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1144-1159
Number of pages16
JournalInternational Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing
Volume27
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Jan 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Blocking
  • Hybrid flow shop
  • robotic cell
  • Simulated annealing
  • Single robot

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