|
In order to compete with other countries, automation has
been implemented in the different industries in Taiwan
to promote the production speed and lower the cost.
Automation is dependent of the facility layout, which
integrates labors, devices, materials, transportation
equipment and so on. A good facility layout can upgrade
the production operation. In a material handling system,
the material handling id usually reflect the efficiency of
a facility layout. The guide path layout for an automated
guided vehicle system (AGVS) is a critical component in the
overall design of a flexible manufacturing system (FMS)
that utilizes AGVs for materials handling. Not only does it
affect the total distance traveled by the vehicles but it
also affects the number of vehicles and the space
utilization. Thus, the design of the AGV routing is an
important topic in a FMS. In this paper, an efficient
method is proposed for concurrently solving the layout and
guide path decision problems. An algorithm is proposed
which integrates the facility layout procedure, the branch
and bound technique and simulated annealing (SA). By using
this layout procedure, an initial layout can be acquired.
Then SA is used to find a better layout. The branch and bound
technique is then used to find the optimal guide path
whenever a new layout is generated. An example will be used
to illustrate the application of the algorithm.
|