Automated guided vehicles fleet match-up scheduling with production flow constraints

The paper describes a Multimodal Transportation Network (MTN) in which several unimodal networks (Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), hoists, lifts, etc.) interact with each other via common shared workstations as to provide a variety of demand-responsive material handling operations. The material handling transport modes provide movement of work pieces between workstations along their manufacturing routes in the MTN. The main contribution of this work is the solution to a constraint satisfaction problem aimed at AGVs fleet match-up scheduling while taking into consideration assumed itineraries of concurrently manufactured product types. In other words, assuming a given topology of the MTN and schedules of operation sequences modeling concurrently manufactured product types, the main objective is to provide a declarative framework aimed at determining conditions allowing one to adjust the AGVs fleet schedule due to the timetable of operations executed in an assumed multi-product manufacturing environment.