Article ID: | iaor20032326 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 5 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 23 |
End Page Number: | 41 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2002 |
Journal: | Journal of Scheduling |
Authors: | Levner Eugene, Kats Vladimir |
Keywords: | production |
The solution of cyclic scheduling problems is part of the classical repertoire on scheduling algorithms. We consider a problem of cyclic scheduling of identical parts in a production line where transportation of the parts between machines is performed by several robots. The problem is to find co-ordinated movements of the parts and robots in the line with the no-wait constraints imported; the objective is to maximize the throughput rate. Unlike many previous algorithms which are either heuristic or at best solve the single-robot version of the problem in