Choice of the guide path layout for an AGV based material handling system

This paper is concerned with flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) using automated guided vehicle based material handling systems. The automated guided vehicle systems (AGVs) are discrete flow systems and they employ unidirectional and bi-directional guide path networks. This paper has two main objectives. The first one consists in proposing an approach for material flow modelling based on a mathematical optimization method. With this approach can be obtained the guide path layout design of the wire guided vehicles based material handling system. The objective of the mathematical optimization model is the minimization of the total distance travelled by vehicles to transport the required charge plus fixed equipment costs. The authors´ second objective deals with the comparison of the problems concerning bi-directional guide path networks and mixed guide path networks (comprised of both unidirectional and bi-directional aisles). The first part of the paper situates the context and the problems concerning flow network layout design. In the second paragraph the authors present a material flow modelling methodology using mathematical optimisation methods. In this part the optimisation model is presented and solved. A study case is presented in the third part. The authors describe the layout choice of the wire guided vehicle system according to performance and financial criteria