Scheduling of smart intra – factory material supply operations using mobile robots

Abstract

This paper presents the design and prototype implementation of a service-based control system responsible for the material supply operations planning and coordination in assembly lines. The material supply processes are carried out by autonomous mobile units that are responsible for the transportation of the consumables from the warehouse to the production stations. The plan generation based on time and inventory level driven criteria is automatically carried out by a web-based software that can also distribute the derived plan to the autonomous mobile units. The proposed system was implemented on a case inspired by an actual production line from the automotive assembly sector. Discrete event simulation has been employed for the investigated production system, to derive the specifications for the mobile units (e.g. number of boxes that can carry simultaneously) that may serve the system efficiently. The results indicate that the proposed architecture integrated with the discussed mobile assistant units may provide high quality solutions with respect to the end user criteria.

Keywords:

• material supply operations
• real-time scheduling
• discrete event simulation
• autonomous mobile robots
• service-oriented architecture

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank TURK OTOMOBIL FAB. A.S (TOFAS) for providing valuable input for the definition of the part supply problem in industrial environment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work reported in this paper has been partially funded by the EC research project ‘ROBO-PARTNER – Seamless Human-Robot Cooperation for Intelligent, Flexible and Safe Operations in the Assembly Factories of the Future’ [grant number 608855] (www.robo-partner.eu).