Article ID: | iaor19951349 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 32 |
Issue: | 12 |
Start Page Number: | 2735 |
End Page Number: | 2750 |
Publication Date: | Dec 1994 |
Journal: | International Journal of Production Research |
Authors: | Lin J.T., Dgen P.-K. |
Keywords: | automated guided vehicles |
A tandem AGV (automated guided vehicle) system is composed of several non-overlapping closed loops. Stations within each loop are served by a single dedicated vehicle. The transit area located between two adjacent loops serves as an interface and allows loads to be transferred from one loop to another. If a load needs to be delivered to a station not located within the same loop, the load needs more than one vehicle to carry it to its destination. The authors regard this routeing problem as a problem of finding the shortest travel time. After a command to deliver a load is issued, finding a route from the source to the destination as rapidly as possible without disrupting other active travel schedules was the objective of this study. A task-list time-window algorithm to find a shortest travel time based on the current status to route a load from point A to point B is presented. Two idle-vehicle managements are considered: circulating (CIRC) and STAY policies. Experiments shows that the STAY policy is more efficient than the CIRC policy in routeing control.