Sheduling approach for Microfactories with setup times.

Abstract

International audienceIn this paper we consider microfactories for manipulation and assembly. These microfactories are composed of several cells containing microrobotic systems capable of a high level of repeatability. The assembly plan of the production is a pipeline of tasks that are performed by the cells. Our aim is to manage the production flow in the case where the cells can be reconfigured to perform different task types. Each cell is in charge of several consecutive tasks. A setup time is necessary to switch from the processing of one task type to another, and multiple intermediate results may be stored temporarily in storage areas to avoid switching the task type after the processing of each product. In this context we assess the optimized use of these storage areas, called buffers, and its impact on the production throughput