Scheduling a Single Mobile Robot Incorporated into Production Environment

Eco-production and logistics with environmental consciousness are playing a larger role in manufacturing firms. They involve scheduling, planning, developing and implementing manufacturing processes and technologies that are required not only to keep productivity high but also to respond to the challenges of issues such as energy conservation and pollution preventions. Facing the central tension between manufacturing and environmental drivers is difficult, but critical to develop new technologies, particularly mobile robots, that can be incorporated into production to achieve holistic solutions. This chapter deals with the problem of finding optimal operating sequence in a manufacturing cell of a mobile robot with manipulation arm that feeds materials to feeders. The “Bartender Concept” is discussed to show the cooperation between the mobile robot and industrial environment. The performance criterion is to minimize total traveling time of the robot with the smallest consumed amount of battery energy in a given planning horizon. A mixed-integer programming (MIP) model is developed to find the optimal solutions for the problem. Two case studies are implemented at an impeller production line to demonstrate the results of the proposed MIP model.