A Simulation Study for Integrating Library Material Handling with Autonomous Mobile Robots

Libraries have served customer, so-called patrons, as a cultural and educational arena for many decades. Although there is a trace of attempts for incorporating advantageous technologies into the library environment, efficient operation of the library is still an underinvestigated topic which deserves scholarly efforts in the realm of material handling. Thus, this study seeks to contribute to the improvement of the library material handling by taking advantage of mobile robot solutions. A case study at the Trondheim Public Library of Norway is primary employed in order to capture the material flow of books within a library and to study the challenges of material handling in this context. The literature review assists in exploring the recent technologies that have contributed to the material handling. In pursuit of improving the moving processes, a simulation analysis is then considered to examine the utilization of autonomous mobile robot (AMR) under two layout configurations: centralized and decentralized. The simulation analysis is accomplished under the influence of two automation strategy, consisting semi-automated and fully-automated. Given the impact of two layout configurations, four scenarios were examined throughout the simulation, and the results demonstrate that an exhaustive technological upgrade of the material handling in the library does not necessarily yield the optimal performance. In this regard, the semi-automated approach in conjunction with the decentralized layout configuration demonstrated the highest performance with respect to two key performance indicators (KPIs), namely time in the machine and time for moving/emptying the bins.