• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.85-101
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• 1995

Automated Guided Vehicles(AGVs) are widely used in computer integrated manufacturing(CIM) systems for material handling purposes. Although automated guided vehicles provide higher levels of flexibility and computer integrability, the installations are limited in number and one of the critical reasons lies in the complexity involved in the operation. The main objective of this research is to alleviate this problem by proposing efficient integrated operational control methods for AGV-based CIM systems. Particularly, this research is concerned with the mixed problem of dispatching automated guided vehicles and scheduling machines operation. The proposed dynamic heuristic algorithm uses various priority schemes and relevant information concerning the load of the system, the status of queues, and the position of AGVs in the scheduling process. The scheduling decision process is hierarchical in the sense that different decision criteria are applied sequentially to identify the most appropriate part to be served. This algorithm consists of two sections, the section of part selection by AGVs for the next service whenever an AGV completes the current assignment, and the section of part selection by machines for next service whenever a machine completes the current operation. The proposed algorithm has been compared with other scheduling schemes using the performance measure of mean flow-time and mean tardiness. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm can reduce the mean flow-time and mean tardiness significantly.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.68-75
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• 2023

In an automotive plant, an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) synchronizes material handling flows from a part production line to an auto-assembly line. The part production line transfers parts on small-/large-sized pallets. The products on pallets are temporarily stored on the ASRS, and the ASRS retrieves the products upon request from the auto-assembly line. Each ASRS aisle is equipped with narrow-/wide-width racks for two pallet sizes. An ASRS aisle with narrow-/wide-width racks improves both storage space utilization and crane utilization while requiring delicate ASRS aisle design, i.e., the locations of the narrow-/wide-width racks in an ASRS aisle, and proper operation policies affect the ASRS performance over demand fluctuations. We focus on operation policies involving a common storage zone using wide-width racks for two pallet sizes and a storage-retrieval job-change for a crane based on assembly-line batch size. We model a discrete-event simulation model and conduct extensive experiments to evaluate operation policies. The simulation results address the best ASRS aisle design and suggest the most effective operation policies for the aisle design.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.59-69
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• 2018

This study deals with the case study on the pallet quantity determination problem for the flexible manufacturing system producing 32 different types of aircraft wing ribs which are major structures of an aircraft wings. A Korean company has constructed the WFMS (wing rib flexible manufacturing system) that is composed of several automated equipments such as the 5-axis machining centers, the RGV (rail guided vehicles)s, the AS/RS (automated storage and retrieval system), the loading/unloading stations, and so on. Pallets play a critical role in the WFMS to maintain high system utilization and continuous work flow between 5-axis machining machines and automated material handling devices. The discrete event simulation method is used to evaluate the performance of the WFMS under various pallet mix alternatives for wing rib manufacturing processes. Four performance measures including system utilization, throughput, lead-time and work in process inventory level are investigated to determine the best pallet mix alternative. The best pallet mix identified by the simulation study is adopted in setting up and operating a real Korean aircraft parts manufacturing shop. By comparing the real WFMS's performances with those of the simulation study, we discussed the cause of performance difference observed and the necessity of developing the CPS (cyber physical system).

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.91-103
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• 2008

In order to simulate the behavior of automated manufacturing systems, the performance of material handling systems should be measured dynamically. Multi-Agent technology could be well adapted for the development of simulator for distributed and intelligent manufacture systems. A multi-agent system is composed of one coordination agent and multiple application agents. Issues in AGVS simulator can be classified by the set-up and operating problems. Decisions on the number of vehicles, bi- or uni-directional guide-path, etc. are fallen into the set-up problem category, while deadlock tree algorithm and conflict resolution are in operating problem. In this paper, a multi-agent based deadlock-free simulator for automated guided vehicle system(AGVS) are proposed through the use of multi-agent technologies and the development of deadlock-free algorithm. In this AGVS simulator proposed, well-known Floyd algorithm is used to create AGVS Guide path, through which AGVS move. Also, AGVs avoid vehicle conflict and deadlock using check path algorithm. And Moving vehicle agents are operated in real-time control by coordination agent. AGV position is dynamically calculated based on the concept of rolling time horizon. Simulator receives and presents operating information of vehicle in AGVS Gaunt chart. The performance of the proposed algorithm and developed simulator based on multi-agent are validated through set of experiments.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.41-50
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• 2012

In this study we first explain details of the semiconductor manufacturing processes and cluster tools. Then we discuss the problems in current fab layout and cluster tool architecture. As a solution to these problems, we propose the ILE (In-Line EFEM) architecture in which wafer movements are conducted through interconnected EFEMs (Equipment Front End Modules) instead of AMHS (Automated Material Handling System). Then we model the pilot ILE system using discrete event simulation and analyze the cycle time. Finally we compare three different scenarios of equipment layout in the ILE system in terms of cycle time.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.120-128
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• 2018

OLED Display fabrication system is one of the most complicated discrete processing systems in the world. As the glass size grows from $550{\times}650mm$ to $1,500{\times}1,850mm$ in recent years, the efficiency of Automated Material Handling System (AMHS) has become very important and OLED glass manufacturers are trying to improve the overall efficiency of AMHS. Aiming to meet the demand for high efficiency of transportation, various kind of approaches have been applied for improving dispatching rules and facility layout, while simultaneously considering the system parameters such as glass cassettes due date, waiting time, and stocker buffer status. However, these works did not suggest the operational policy and conditions of distribution systems, especially for handling unnecessary material flows such as detour. Based on this motivation, in this paper, we proposed an efficient algorithm for improving detour transportation in OLED FAB. Specifically, we considered an OLED FAB simplifying OLED production environment in a Korean company, where four stockers are constructed for the delivery of Lot in a bay and linked to processing equipments. We developed a simulation model using Automod and performed a numerical experiment using real operational data to test the performance of three operation policies under considerations. We showed that a competitive policy for assigning alternative stocker in case of detour was superior to the current dedicated policy using a specified stocker and other considered policies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.19 no.40
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• pp.107-117
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• 1996

This paper considers the part assignment to workstations in flexible manufactuirng system (FMS). Parts are processed through several workstations according to processing order. The machines of each workstation can do multiple Processing functions. Therefore, a processing of a part can be processed in several workstations, which are non-identical in functional performance. Although a processing of a part can be processed in the multiple workstations, it has to be processed in only one among available several workstations, Parts are transported with unit load by automated guided vehicles (AGVs). The criteria of part assignment is to minimize the maximum value of the processing times of each workstation and the total transport times of vehicles. Model formulation is suggested, and numerical example is shown.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.525-528
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• 2006

This paper considers the vehicle dispatching problem in the automated material handling system (AMHS) of a large scale semiconductor fabrication line, which consists of 18 bays, 468 equipments and uses more than 130 overhead hoist transporters (OHT). We propose an assignment problem based vehicle dispatching approach to take advantage of simultaneous vehicle reassignment based on up-to-date system status. The proposed approach compares fsvorably with the shortest travel distance first rule and with the reassignment based rule which was recently proposed by the authors, in the number of vehicles required and the average lead time.

• IE interfaces
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 1995

Automated Storage and Retrieval System (AS/RS), which is an element of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), is a widely used material handling equipment with conveyors and Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs). Until now the evaluation of operational policies of AS/RS and control algorithms is done theoretically or by computer simulations. In this study, a real-time control and communication software for an AS/RS is developed for actually moving AS/RS miniature. A PC-based real-time operational program can control the AS/RS directly through the communication port. The operational system has additional functions such as storage/retrieval management, inventory management, statistics management, and protocol simulation. The communication protocol simulator of S/R machine can be used for the controller of an S/R machine.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

The stocker system is another name of automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) and being popularly used as main material handling tools in Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and semiconductor fabrication facilities. Recently the use of the stocker system has been extended to transportation from conventional storage and retrieval in LCD fabrication facilities. Toolsets are connected in the ground level of the stocker system and 4~6 stories of the shelves are placed in the upper or lower ground level. As a consequence of the more sophisticated design, move requests imposed on the system greatly increased. For solving this problem, the industry adopted the dual-robot stocker system that two robots are moving along the same guide line in the stocker system. This research develops a closed-form solution to estimate a delivery rate of the dual robot stocker system under given design and operation parameters. Using this stochastic model, industry practitioners could analyze performance levels under given various design parameters, and ultimately the model helps optimizing the design parameters.