EXPECTED PART DELAYS AS A SECONDARY LAYOUT CRITERION IN AUTOMATED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

Delays in the internal movement of parts can directly influence throug hput performance in some manufacturing systems. A part delay model for single-vehicle material handling systems is formulated and used to li nk the problems of facility layout and throughput maximization in auto mated manufacturing systems. The model is applied through a two-phase algorithm where a vehicle scheduling procedure bounds the level of exp ected part delays associated with alternative layout designs. A series of test problems is used to illustrate the performance and examine th e robustness of the modelling procedure. (C) 1997 by Elsevier Science Inc.