Flexible manufacturing systems: a review of analytical models
Management Science
Robotics and Material Flow
Expert simulation systems—recent developments and applications in flexible manufacturing systems
Computers and Industrial Engineering
Evaluation of FMS parameters on overall system performance
Computers and Industrial Engineering
A stochastic model for a machining cell with tool failure and tool replacement considerations
Computers and Operations Research
Part Batching and Scheduling in a Flexible Cell to Minimize Setup Costs
Journal of Scheduling
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This paper presents a stochastic model to determine the performance of a flexible manufacturing cell (FMC) under variable operational conditions, including random machining times, random loading and unloading times, and random pallet transfer times. The FMC under study consists of two machines, pallet handling system, and a loading/unloading robot. After delivering the blanks by the pallet to the cell, the robot loads the first machine followed by the second. Unloading of a part starts with the machine that finishes its part first, followed by the next machine. When the machining of all parts on the pallet is completed, the handling system moves the pallet with finished parts out and brings in a new pallet with blanks. A model with these characteristics turns out to be a Markov chain with a transition matrix of size 5n + 3, where n is the number of parts on the pallet. In this paper, we present exact numerical solutions and economic analysis to evaluate FMC systems, to determine optimal pallet capacity and robot speed that minimize total FMC cost per unit of production.