Productivity Gains in Flexible Robotic Cells

Flexible robotic cells combine the capabilities of robotic flow shops with those of flexible manufacturing systems. In an m-machine flexible cell, each part visits each machine in the same order. However, the m operations can be performed in any order, and each machine can be configured to perform any operation. We derive the maximum percentage increase in throughput that can be achieved by changing the assignment of operations to machines. We find that no increase can be gained in two-machine cells, and the gain in threeand four-machine cells each is at most 14 7 %. For this calculation, the assignment remains constant throughout a lot’s processing. Additionally, we determine the throughput increase that can be gained by varying the assignment of operations to machines for successive parts within a processing lot.