A study on the operation of automated guided vehicles using production cycle time

The ever-growing demands for more responsiveness and more flexibility in manufacturing generate greater expectation for the AGV system. So far, a significant amount of research has been carried out to fulfill those requirements. However, the dynamic characteristics of manufacturing systems make it hard to solve the problem analytically. In this paper, the AGV system is analyzed in the production environments which adopt a cycle time to produce materials. The use of the cycle time could eliminate much of uncertainty inherent in the manufacturing process so that it is possible to build the deterministic model for the AGV systems, which eventually produce better results on the important issues such as AGV dispatching, determination of the number of AGVs, and empty vehicle travel time.