Scheduling of automated guided vehicles in a decision making hierarchy

Scheduling efforts made without considering the special limitations of the material handling system might lead to infeasible results. An analytical model is proposed, first, to incorporate the automated guided vehicle (AGV) system into the overall decision making hierarchy. A mathematical formulation is developed to include interaction between the AGV module and other modules in the system by considering the restrictions of the material handling system. A micro-opportunistic approach is then proposed to solve the AGV scheduling problem. Finally, the proposed method is compared with a number of dispatching rules.