On the scheduling of a multipurpose laboratory analysis instrument

摘要

Automated laboratory analysis by the time-resolved fluoroimmunotechnique is a modern application of biochemistry and embedded computertechnology. The laboratory system is interesting from the point of viewof scheduling. The laboratory system, AutoDELFIA, consists of 14 moduleswhich can work partially in parallel: pumper, loader, x-lane, reagentlane, elevator, washer, remover, enhancement dispenser, reagentdispenser, barcode reader, incubator, measurement unit, liquid systemand sample processor. the loader, elevator and x-lane are used to movesample plates from one module to another. Each of these three devicesmay move only one plate at time, and in addition, the x-lane is reservedto hold the sample plate during the operation of the washer, remover orsome of the dispensers when the sample plate is processed. Thisrequirement makes the x-lane a bottleneck device that restricts thelevel of parallelism and performance of the whole system. Restrictionscombined with the hard due times of the chemical operations makescheduling a complicated task: the length of the actual make span has tobe determined by simulation