Integrated operational techniques for efficient robotic batch manufacturing systems

This paper focuses on a batch manufacturing system with multiple industrial robots. In this system, material-handling robots (MHRs) and material-processing robots (MPRs) are operating. Inappropriate operations of these robots might cause a bottleneck. In addition, a bottleneck is a constraint that dominates the entire system performance, that is, the productivity. Therefore, for an efficient system, these robots have to operate appropriately while relating to each other. This is a challenge in this study. We propose the following operational techniques: route planning approaches for the MHR and operation dispatching rules for the MPR on the basis of task-assignment to the robots that will reduce the effect of a bottleneck. Furthermore, reactive cooperation among the MPRs, so that the robots respond to a fluctuating heavy workload caused by the shifting bottleneck, is an essential operational technique. Throughout the simulation experiments, each combination of the operational techniques is examined; finally, the integrated operational techniques are shown.

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