Operations scheduling for the robot‐centered parallel‐processor workcell

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, the problem of scheduling robot operations for a robot‐centered parallel‐processor cell is considered. N parts and m identical processors are assumed in the cell, a robot is responsible for both loading and unloading the parts, and the schedule of robot activities is to minimize the makespan. A mixed integer program is formulated to describe the characteristics of the problem. However, in the case of a large number of parts, it is not easy to obtain an optimal solution because of inordinate computational time. Therefore, three heuristic algorithms are proposed to get an approximately optimal schedule. The number of processors and the interval of the ratio of loading time to processing time are shown to have significant effects on the performance of heuristic algorithms. Experimental results and analyses are presented.