Robot scheduling system for flexible manufacturing cells

A class of flexible manufacturing cells containing a robot is examined. The role of the robot is to load parts onto machines, to unload parts from machines, and to transport parts between machines. The problem of finding efficient robot schedules/tours is one of substantial economic significance. The authors devise a rule-based system to assist the cell supervisor in making good decisions by utilizing the available information during the production process. The rule-based system combines an algorithmic procedure to deal with a well-structured environment, and a flexible heuristic approach employed to deal with less structured environments. The algorithmic and heuristic procedures are applied separately, and then together, to control the robot movement in a simulation experiment. A predictable tradeoff is shown between the quality of the resulting schedule and the information content of the heuristics used