Multimodal Processes Rescheduling: Cyclic Steady States Space Approach

The paper concerns cyclic scheduling problems arising in a Multimodal Transportation Network (MTN) in which several unimodal networks (AGVs, hoists, lifts, etc.) interact with each other via common shared workstations as to provide a variety of demand-responsive material handling operations. The material handling transport modes provide movement of work-pieces between workstations along their manufacturing routes in the MTN. The goal is to provide a declarative framework enabling to state a constraint satisfaction problem aimed at AGVs fleet match-up scheduling taking into consideration assumed itineraries of concurrently manufactured product types. In that context, treating the different product types as a set of cyclic multimodal processes is the main objective to discuss the conditions sufficient for FMS rescheduling imposed by production orders changes. To conclude, the conditions sufficient for an FMS rescheduling imposed by changes of production orders treated as cyclic multimodal processes are stated as the paper’s main contribution.