Technical and financial considerations of AGV use within multi-product and batch manufacture

✍ Scribed by R. Lee; R. Leonard

• Book ID: 103970487
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 718 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0951-5240
• DOI: 10.1016/0951-5240(92)90004-v

✦ Synopsis

The traditional batch manufacturing environment is studied with regard to the economic and technical use of automated guided vehicles (AGV). Parts delivery to single machines by an AGV was discounted as producing little benefit, and five inherent problems to this approach were identified. Solutions were then sought to enable a practical strategy to AGV use to be formulated, and these provided a logical progression to the grouped machine approach to facility location. Similarly, loading machines by robot was studied as a physical and information link between the AGVs and the machine tools. The data links and information characteristics required were then compared for three levels of automation and integration, and the advantages and disadvantages identified.