Optimal number of vehicles and paths of movement in GridFlow systems with AGVs

  • Autor:

    Melanie Schwab
  • Quelle:

    25th European Conference on operational research
  • Datum: 2012

  • The new concept GridFlow is an automatic materialflow system to buffer, sort and store pallets. The pallets are arranged in a grid with at leas one empty location and each can be moved in four directions, if no other pallet is blocking it. Pallets are moved by AGVs which drive underneath the pallets. Sequential movement of pallets allows to retrieve pallets that can not be accessed directly. As investment for vehicles is the main cost factor in the system, the optimal number of vehicles and path of movement is derived from a mixed optimization model which shall be presented.