Optimal number of pallets for reconfigurable cyclic manufacturing plants

• In a cyclic manufacturing system, the number of pallets in a handling and locating pallet system (HLPS) can have a huge effect on the production cycle time. The complexity of calculating the optimal number of pallets that satisfies the minimal cycle time poses a challenging design problem. In this paper the optimal solution is presented for deterministic cyclic manufacturing systems having determined schedule of tasks for multi-product applications. Furthermore, a specific domain which includes the optimal number of pallets is obtained for any arbitrary schedule of various product types in an HLPS. To verify the optimal solution, a reconfigurable Colored Petri Net (CPN) model is developed for a simple X85 pallet system. For various cases of machine processing times, the optimal number of pallets is obtained for the suggested framework.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Annan elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Cyclic manufacturing systems

colored Petri Nets

pallet number optimization

multi-product systems

Publication and Content Type

kon (subject category)

ref (subject category)