Degree Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

2016

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Theses & dissertations (College of Business)

Major

Business and Technology

First Advisor

Yoshinori Suzuki

Abstract

This dissertation explores battery management for automated guided vehicles (AGVs). AGVs are driver-less vehicles that usually run on batteries. According to Le-Anh and De Koster (2006), battery management of AGVs deals with the issues like how long a particular AGV will operate before its battery is recharged or replaced, capacity of the battery stations, location of the battery stations, availability of idle time for the AGVs etc. Literature on AGV systems generally ignores battery management assuming that the effect of battery management is negligible. However, there have been few studies showing that battery management can play an important role for the overall performance of an AGV system. As the competition in the business world grows, firms need to find new and innovative ways to improve their performance. In that case, battery management has the potential to be a source of competitive advantage for a firm that uses AGVs. The main reason of selecting the battery management of AGVs as the topic of this dissertation is to help enhance the literature of this topic. To fulfill that objective, this dissertation has been designed as a three-paper model so that three different attributes of battery management can be addressed extensively. Each of the three papers represents a chapter in this dissertation (i.e., chapter 2, chapter 3, and chapter 4). Chapter 2 (i.e., the first paper) is mainly based on literature review. The literature review has been augmented by the information gathered from practitioners. The purpose of chapter 2 is to have a better understanding of the battery management of AGVs and to explore common themes among different dimensions of battery management. Chapter 3 (i.e., the second paper) explores the possibility of increasing manufacturing flexibility through battery management of AGVs. This chapter shows how a firm can use battery management to meet an unexpected increase in demand for the short run. Chapter 4 (i.e., the third paper) compares and contrasts different routing techniques for battery management in order to investigate how such routing techniques can affect the productivity of an AGV system.

Copyright Owner

Qazi Shaheen Kabir

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

File Size

108 pages

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