On an automated material handling system design problem in cellular manufacturing systems

We consider the automated material handling system design problem in a cellular manufacturing system (CMS). Simple transportation units including low-cost automated guided vehicles are quite often used in CMSs in South Korea. It is assumed that a transportation unit circulates among a group of cells (stations), and the unit is assumed to collect items from the output buffer of the stations. Collected items are unloaded at a cell which functions as a storage. We are interested in the capacity of the transportation unit, or the number of cells the transportation should visit. Using an embedded Markov chain, we derive the remaining capacity of the transportation unit when it leaves each station. In addition, the probability that the transportation unit is full at its departure epoch is also derived. We provide various numerical results including the effect of volatility of the arrival rates among stations. [Received: 30 December 2017; Revised: 18 October 2018; Accepted: 16 December 2018]