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Explains that a tandem automated guided vehicle (AGV) system is composed of several non‐overlapping closed loops. Stations or machines within each loop are served by a single dedicated vehicle. The transit area located between two adjacent loops serves as an interface and allows loads to be transferred from one loop to another. If a load needs to be delivered to a machine not located within the same loop, the load will need more than one vehicle to carry it to its destination. Develops a model to solve the machine partition and layout problems concurrently in tandem AGV systems. During the design process, the objective is to minimize the number of loops to reduce the setup costs of AGVs in the system. Naturally, the desirability of a prospective loop must be evaluated in terms of the number of machines it covers, the workload of each AGV, and the ratio of the flow within the loop to the total flow associated with that loop.Quality indicators Research implications** Practice implications** Originality** Readability**

Automated guide vehicles (AGVs) are driverless vehicles that perform material handling operations in both flexible and conventional facilities. We provide here a review of recent work on the design of AGV guide paths and dispatching rules, including related issues such as idle vehicle location, and location of pickup and delivery stations. Different types of guide paths and related layouts, including optimal and heuristic approaches to the path design, are reviewed here. Dispatching rules and algorithms, including zone control, are also proposed and compared with commonly‐used rules.

Describes a company‐based PhD project into the use of automated guided vehicles in a small‐batch manufacturing environment. The project led to a balanced‐cell methodology to facilitate the use of guided vehicles in a difficult environment. The methodology itself was found to provide benefits for material flow. Having formulated the above approach, a theoretical model is presented, analysing the operational effects of improved workflow. The above theoretical analysis showed the potential benefits of balanced cells on the factory floor, and these were confirmed by a simulation study. This being so, a DCF analysis showed that balanced cells enabled the economic use of guided vehicle systems in multi‐product batch manufacture, by transforming an AGV project from a negative to a positive net present value. An analysis of the wider effects of cellular manufacture enabled the value of the investment to be increased.

Simulation has been gaining in acceptance as a tool which enables industrial and manufacturing engineers to perform extensive analysis of the problems they face on a daily basis. Analyses the productivity of a system of four flexible machining centres with regard to the transport of workpieces. Three types of transport were studied: automated inductively guided vehicle, automated rail‐guided vehicle and automated conveyor system. The simulation study has shown that the highest productivity of the system is achieved when using automatic conveyor belts as a transport means.

This paper aims to examine the potentials of using automated guided vehicle (AGV) technology in modular integrated construction (MiC) to realise logistics automation in module manufacturing and transport.

This paper adopts a scenario approach through three phases (i.e. scenario preparation, development and transfer), with six steps performed iteratively. The scenarios were systematically developed using a six-aspect socio-technical framework. Data were collected through a comprehensive literature review, site visits and interviews with relevant stakeholders and professionals. Implications regarding strength, weakness, opportunities and challenges and future research directions are provided.

The developed scenarios of “smart manufacturing” and “last-mile delivery” demonstrated how AGVs could be used to enhance efficiency and productivity in module manufacturing and transport. The synergies between AGVs and emerging information technologies should pave a good foundation for realising logistics automation in MiC. Future research should address: how to define the tasks of AGVs, how will the use of AGVs impact MiC practices, how to design AGV-integrated module manufacturing/transport systems and how to integrate people factors into the use of AGVs in MiC.

This paper reveals the socio-technical benefits and challenges of using AGVs in MiC.

This study extends the understanding of using logistics automation in MiC as emerging research directions, with the intention of directing scholars’ and practitioners’ interest into future exploration. It is the first attempt in its kind. Its findings could be extended to constitute a comprehensive development roadmap and prospects of automation in modular construction.

Magnet spot is the primary method to develop the automated guided vehicle (AGV) guidance system for many automated container terminals (ACT). Aiming to improve the high flexibility of AGV operation in ACT, this paper aims to address the problem of technical stability leading to ACT production paralysis and propose a mini-terminal AGV robot for testing laser simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM)-based methods in ACT operation scenarios.

This study developed a physical simulation robot for terminal AGV operations, providing a platform to test technical solutions for applying laser navigation-related technologies in ACTs. Then, the terminal-AGV navigation system framework is designed to apply the laser-SLAM-based method in the physical simulation robot. Finally, the experiment is conducted in the terminal operation scenario to verify the feasibility of the proposed framework for lased-SLAM-based method testing and analyze the performance of the different mini-terminal AGV robots.

A series of experiments are conducted to analyze the performance of the proposed mini-terminal AGV robot for laser-SLAM-based method testing. The experimental results show the validity and effectiveness of the AGV robot and AGV navigation system framework with better local map matching, loopback and absolute positional error.

The proposed mini-terminal AGV robot and AGV navigation system framework can provide a platform for innovative laser-SLAM-based method testing in ACTs applications. Therefore, this study can effectively meet the high requirements of ACT for maturity and stability of the laser navigation technical.

This paper aims to highlight the complex nature of automated guided vehicle (AGV) simulation model building, and especially how system modelling details affect the end results. This is an important issue in all of the transportation simulation systems, since they are service‐based by their nature, and additional inefficiencies create unanticipated performance downgrading.

This paper uses a simulation approach, and simulated systems are based on a real‐life case study and on well accepted hypothetical simulation example.

Simulation system boundaries are often neglected in the model building, and especially interface to inbound (and possibly outbound) material flow should be considered carefully; based on these research results, AGV investments are seen in an entirely different light, as system boundary is enlarged to contain more realistically interacting elements. Similar system boundary issues were found from the case study: interface with overhead gantry did not provide near optimal performance. The case study also revealed that high speed of AGVs is not necessarily worth additional investment; constraints exist in safety, acceleration and ability to turn in corners.

The findings are based on the simulation work and, to see the real implications, real‐life implementations on policy level are needed.

Results of this research provide more insights for manufacturing unit investments, and especially in the scope of automated transportation system use. Also changes in manufacturing flow management issues, after investing in, for example, AGV systems, are different from in less‐automated manufacturing units.

This research work provides more insights to simulation research work, especially from the perspective of transportation systems. Also implications arising from case study are unique as being compared to previous research in the field.

The extensive development of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) over the last two decades is outlined, and a vehicle for use in small assembly processes such as electronic equipment manufacturing is described. This micro‐AGV is intended for bench‐top use, and is guided by wall sensors between workstations. Traction is provided by two stepper motors, which receive their signals through appropriate drivers from an on‐board microcontroller. This device controls the vehicle in accordance with data stored in a non‐volatile memory, representing the node locations of the workstations in the path. Graphs of speed and electricity consumption against stepper pulse length are presented, and the issue of battery life is discussed. Circuitry for the stepper driver and the microcontroller interface is given. Specific applications of the vehicle in the electronics manufacturing industry are discussed, and a design of processing environment is presented.

The use of multiple-capacity rail-guided vehicles (RGVs) has made automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) optimization more complex. The paper performs dual-RGV scheduling considering loading/unloading and collision-avoidance constraints simultaneously as these issues have only been considered separately in the previous literature.

This paper proposes a novel model for dual-RGV scheduling with two-sided loading/unloading operations and collision-avoidance constraints. To solve the proposed problem, a hybrid harmony search algorithm (HHSA) is developed. To enhance its performance, a descent-based local search with eight move operators is introduced.

A group of problem instances at different scales are optimized with the proposed algorithm and the results are compared with those of two other high-performance methods. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can efficiently solve realistically sized cases of dual multi-capacity RGV scheduling problems in AS/RSs.

For the first time in the research on dual multi-capacity RGV scheduling in an AS/RS, two-sided loading/unloading operations and collision avoidance constraints are simultaneously considered. Furthermore, a mathematical model for minimizing the makespan is developed and the HHSA is developed to determine solutions.