Challenges to Represent and Manage Transport and Material Handling Systems in Manufacturing Systems

Transport and Material Handling Systems (TMHS) are characterized by behaviors, properties, rules and restrictions which makes their representation challenging. The literature about representing and/or modeling TMHS is not extensive, despite its acknowledged importance. Several challenges to represent TMHS are identified and discussed in this paper, such as TMHS with several devices, restrictions, shapes of networks, places to visit, transport and handling activities to execute or communication with manual and automatic equipment. The synchronization and integration of transport and handling activities with the remaining processes of manufacturing systems is also one of the main challenges discussed. Finally, the authors suggest that this research gap should lead to the development of new models and techniques to represent TMHS in manufacturing systems - preferably based on a generic approach to meet the requirements of different organizations and TMHS. The authors have selected two research questions to structure the paper but further research is also necessary on this topic.

I. Introduction

Everything that can be digitized will be digitized at an incredible speed and Transport and Material Handling Systems (TMHS) will not be an exception. TMHS take a critical role in the demand for more efficient manufacturing practices since they are designed to get the right material, in the right place, at the right time. Over the last few years, more attention has been paid to these systems - particularly in the context of Industry 4.0 and Smart Factories, since they have a huge influence on the overall performance of manufacturing systems [1]–[4].