Question: An industrial robot will service n production machines in a machine cluster. Each production machine is identical and has an automatic processing time Tm = 50 sec. The robot servicing time for each machine is given by the equation Ts = 10 + 4n, where Ts is the servicing time in seconds. Ts increases with /I because more time is needed to move the robot arm as it increases. The full cycle time for each machine in the cell is Tc = Ts + Tm.
(a) Determine the maximum number of machines in the cell such that there is no machine interference. For your answer,
(b) what is the machine cycle time, and
(c) what are the robot idle time and ma-chine idle time expressed as a percentage of the cycle time Tc?