Heuristics for the Design of Part-orienting Systems
International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems, 5, 1993, 167-185
Posted: 6 May 2020
Date Written: 1993
Abstract
In many manufacturing systems, parts must be fed to automatic machines in a specific orientation. This is often accomplished by what are known as part-orienting systems (POSs). A POS consists of one or more separate devices that orient parts, usually with multiple orientations. A theoretical analysis along with the development of some heuristic algorithms is carried out in order to treat the problem of efficient selection and ordering of part-orienting devices that make up a POS. It is indicated that the size of such problems can be quite large in the context of flexible manufacturing systems which may require what are known as flexible part-orienting systems for their efficient operation. Computational experiments are performed in order to evaluate the relative performance of the heuristic algorithms.
Keywords: part-orienting devices, flexible part-orienting systems, heuristic algorithms, flexible manufacturing systems, combinatorial optimization.
JEL Classification: C61, M11, M20
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation