Feeding sequence selection in a manufacturing cell with four parallel machines

This paper deals with the problem of finding the optimum feeding sequence in manufacturing cells with machines fed by robots. The particular real case of a cell with four parallel identical machines working alternately on two pallets each one, fed by one robot and with random assistance requirements, is introduced and analyzed. The cell has been modelled and simulation results for different feeding sequences are presented. A general discriminant function to select the best feeding sequence between a fixed and a variable sequence was determined using simulation results for different working and loading times and pattern recognition techniques.