Scheduling-Based Adaptive Operations of Handling Manipulators to Reduce Downtime in Manufacturing Systems

Unexpected interruptions in manufacturing such as machine breakdowns often incur degradation of productivity. This study aims to build an automatic scheduling method that responds to the occurrence of uncertain events flawing a schedule and catch up the planned schedule as quickly as possible. We here focus on building adaptive operations of a material handling robot according to the predetermined schedule revision policy to cope with uncertainties and to reduce the total downtime of the manufacturing system. The applicability of the proposed method is demonstrated through physical experiments.