Optimal number of pallets for reconfigurable cyclic manufacturing plants

Abstract

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.