Article ID: | iaor1994510 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 5 |
Issue: | 3 |
Start Page Number: | 167 |
End Page Number: | 185 |
Publication Date: | Jul 1993 |
Journal: | International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems |
Authors: | Lou Sheldon X.C., Jaumard Brigitte, Sethi Suresh P., Sriskandarajah Chelliah, Lu Shi-Hui, |
In many manufacturing systems, parts must be fed to automatic machines in a specific orientation. This is often accomplished by what are known as part-orientating systems (POSs). A POS consists of one or more separate devices that orient parts, usually with multiple orientations. A theoretical analysis along with the development of some heuristic algorithms is carried out in order to treat the problem of efficient selection and ordering of part-orienting devices that make up a POS. It is indicated that the size of such problems can be quite large in the context of flexible manufacturing systems which may require what are known as flexible part-orienting systems for their efficient operation. Computational experiments are performed in order to evaluate the relative performance of the heuristic algorithms.