Moving Body Spacing Control for Mixed-Speed Factory Transport
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Solution Overview
Problem
In manufacturing processes where different types of vehicles are intermixed, vehicles requiring longer processing times can cause subsequent vehicles to stop or decelerate due to insufficient inter-vehicle distance, hindering transportation.
Innovation Solution
A control device adjusts the inter-moving-body distance between vehicles based on their processing times, ensuring that vehicles requiring longer processing times maintain a greater distance from the preceding vehicle, thereby preventing the subsequent vehicle from entering the next process before completion.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If different types of vehicles are intermixed and transported while maintaining a predetermined inter-vehicle distance, then transportation efficiency is improved, but when a vehicle requiring longer processing time is followed by a vehicle requiring shorter processing time, the inter-vehicle distance becomes insufficient, causing the succeeding vehicle to stop or decelerate
Solution Approach 1:
The inter-vehicle distance is made dynamic rather than fixed. The control device adjusts the distance based on the processing time requirements of preceding vehicles. When a preceding vehicle has a longer processing time, the succeeding vehicle is instructed to maintain a greater distance, ensuring it does not enter the next process before the preceding vehicle completes processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of inter-vehicle distance based on the processing time characteristics of different vehicle types. By identifying whether the preceding vehicle is a first-type (shorter processing time) or second-type (longer processing time) vehicle, the control device appropriately adjusts the distance parameter to prevent process disruption.
2Reliability
If the inter-vehicle distance is increased to prevent stopping, then processing reliability is improved, but transportation efficiency may be reduced due to larger gaps between vehicles
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts inter-vehicle distance based on actual processing time requirements rather than maintaining a uniformly large distance. This allows the system to achieve reliable processing completion only when necessary (when preceding vehicle has longer processing time) while maintaining efficient transportation when possible (when preceding vehicle has shorter processing time).
Data Source
AI summary
In a factory, a control device for controlling an operation of a moving body of at least a part of a plurality of types of moving bodies includes a first-type moving body and a second-type moving body having a time required for a process set in advance in a factory longer than that of the first-type moving body, wherein the control instruction creating unit creates a control instruction so as to adjust a distance between the moving body and the succeeding moving body in a process before entering the process set in advance, and the control instruction creating unit creates a control instruction so that a second distance that is an inter-moving-body distance in a case where the preceding moving body is the second-type moving body is larger than a first distance that is an inter-moving-body distance in a case where the preceding moving body is the first-type moving body.