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Updated: Dec 1, 2025

Operation of the Collaborative Composite Manufacturing CCM System
Published on: October 1, 2019
Improving Just-in-Time Delivery Performance of IoT-Enabled Flexible Manufacturing Systems with AGV Based Material
Fengjia Yao1, Bugra Alkan2, Bilal Ahmad1
1Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Abstract:
Autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) are driverless material handling systems used for transportation of pallets and line side supply of materials to provide flexibility and agility in shop-floor logistics. Scheduling of shop-floor logistics in such systems is a challenging task due to their complex nature associated with the multiple part types and alternate material transfer routings. This paper presents a decision support system capable of supporting shop-floor decision-making activities during the event of manufacturing disruptions by automatically adjusting both AGV and machine schedules in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs). The proposed system uses discrete event simulation (DES) models enhanced by the Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled digital integration and employs a nonlinear mixed integer programming Genetic Algorithm (GA) to find near-optimal production schedules prioritising the just-in-time (JIT) material delivery performance and energy efficiency of the material transportation. The performance of the proposed system is tested on the Integrated Manufacturing and Logistics (IML) demonstrator at WMG, University of Warwick. The results showed that the developed system can find the near-optimal solutions for production schedules subjected to production anomalies in a negligible time, thereby supporting shop-floor decision-making activities effectively and rapidly.
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