TANDEM CONFIGURATION AUTOMATED GUIDED VEHICLE SYSTEMS - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY

Automated guided vehicle (AGV) systems provide the flexibility and int egration required for flexible manufacturing systems. Previous AGV sys tem studies have attempted to reduce the controlling complexities comm only encountered in these systems. However, this has not been accompli shed without additional resources (e.g., automated guided vehicles) an d lower system flexibility. The primary objective of this study is to compare the performance of AGV system configurations that reduce contr olling and modification complexities (i.e., tandem configurations) to traditional AGV system configuration. Three AGV system configurations were tested under 16 experimental conditions. Performance metrics cons idered were AGV utilization, mean flowtime, mean tardiness, and percen t tardy. The results of this study extend the findings of the previous studies in demonstrating the viability of tandem configurations, in t hat the tandem configurations match the performance of traditional con figuration across all performance metrics, without sacrificing ease of control and system flexibility. Finally, the cost tradeoffs inherent in selecting a particular configuration are discussed.