A Bi-Objective Model for a Stage Shop Scheduling Problem with HumanRobot Collaboration

Stage shop scheduling is a type of manufacturing problem, in which operations need to be done on a group of jobs and are separated into different phases depending on their types. The stages are carried out in a sequential order; however, the operations within each stage are carried out in any order. In other words, the operations of a stage cannot be initiated until all operations of the previous stage are completed. Human-robot collaboration has become more popular as technologies and business empowerment has brought humans and robots closer together. In this study, jobs are allocated to humans and robots by presenting a bi-objective linear model to minimize the makespan and the cost of utilizing agents in a stage shop problem. Moreover, an interactive method is used to convert the model into a single objective one. The sensitivity results show that the makespan is minimized noticeably by collaborating the human and robots. Copyright (C) 2022 The Authors.

Automated summary

This study utilizes a bi-objective linear model to minimize makespan and cost in the stage shop problem by allocating jobs to humans and robots. An interactive method is used to convert the model into a single objective one. Sensitivity results demonstrate that human-robot collaboration significantly reduces makespan.