IngentaConnect Optimal dispatching control of an AGV in a JIT production system

Authors: Hirao S.¹; Tamaki M.²; Ohno K.²

Source: Production Planning and Control, Volume 13, Number 8, December 2002 , pp. 746-753(8)

Abstract:

This paper deals with an FMS (Flexible Manufacturing System) in a JIT (Just-In-Time) production system. The FMS consists of m workstations, one dispatching station and a single AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle). Each workstation has an input buffer of limited capacity and its processing times are distributed stochastically. When the processing of a new component starts at the workstation, a withdrawal Kanban attached to it is sent to the dispatching station. The AGV chooses one from workstations whose withdrawal Kanbans are accumulated at the dispatching station, and conveys a component with a withdrawal Kanban from the dispatching station to the workstation. The main purpose of this paper is to find an optimal dispatching policy of the AGV that maximizes the long-run expected average reward per unit time. The problem is formulated as a semi-Markov decision process and an optimal dispatching policy is computed. Numerical experiments are performed to make several comparisons.

Keywords: AGV; optimal dispatching policy; semi-Markov decision process

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Department of Science and Engineering, Kohnan University, Okamota, Higashinada, Kobe 658-8501, Japan. E-mail: hirao@center.konan-u.ac.jp 2: Aichi University, Japan

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