Optimizing material handling within the factory is one of the key problems of modern assembly line systems. The purpose of this paper is to focus on simultaneously balancing a robotic assembly line and the scheduling of material handling required for the operation of such a system, a topic that has received limited attention in academia. Manufacturing industries focus on full autonomy because of the rapid advancements in different elements of Industry 4.0 such as the internet of things, big data and cloud computing. In smart assembly systems, this autonomy aims at the integration of automated material handling equipment such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to robotic assembly line systems to ensure a reliable and flexible production system.,This paper tackles the problem of designing a balanced robotic assembly line and the scheduling of AGVs to feed materials to these lines such that the cycle time and total tardiness of the assembly system are minimized. Because of the combination of two well-known complex problems such as line balancing and material handling and a heuristic- and metaheuristic-based integrated decision approach is proposed.,A detailed computational study demonstrates how an integrated decision approach can serve as an efficient managerial tool in designing/redesigning assembly line systems and support automated transportation infrastructure.,This study is beneficial for production managers in understanding the main decisional steps involved in the designing/redesigning of smart assembly systems and providing guidelines in decision-making. Moreover, this study explores the material distribution scheduling problems in assembly systems, which is not yet comprehensively explored in the literature.

中文翻译：

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面向智能装配系统的生产线平衡和 AGV 调度的集成方法

优化工厂内的物料处理是现代装配线系统的关键问题之一。本文的目的是关注同时平衡机器人装配线和此类系统运行所需的物料搬运调度，这一主题在学术界受到的关注有限。由于物联网、大数据和云计算等工业 4.0 不同元素的快速发展，制造业专注于完全自主。在智能装配系统中，这种自主性旨在将自动导引车 (AGV) 等自动化物料搬运设备集成到机器人装配线系统中，以确保可靠且灵活的生产系统。本文解决了设计平衡的机器人装配线和调度 AGV 以将材料供给到这些线的问题，从而使装配系统的循环时间和总延迟最小化。由于结合了两个众所周知的复杂问题，例如生产线平衡和物料搬运以及基于启发式和元启发式的集成决策方法。详细的计算研究证明了集成决策方法如何作为有效的管理工具在设计/重新设计装配线系统和支持自动化运输基础设施方面。本研究有利于生产经理了解智能装配系统设计/重新设计所涉及的主要决策步骤，并为决策提供指导。而且，