Performance Assessment of Production Systems with Mobile Robots

This paper investigates the effect of introducing multi-purpose mobile robot manipulators to an assembly system. These units are easily relocated in the shop floor and are able to perform a plethora of production processes. This approach increases the system's responsiveness either in the case of planned system reconfigurations or in the resources breakdown. Both the conventional and the new paradigms are analyzed and compared in a case study from the automotive industry. Discrete event simulation techniques are used. The results of the investigation show that a significant increase in the production volume and resource utilization can be achieved.