Abstract: The rational allocation and scheduling of robot resources is key to improving the flexibility of manufacturing cell systems. This paper addresses the minimum cycle scheduling problem of a class of robot manufacturing cells, establishing a scheduling model for the cell system using the maximal algebra method. A heuristic scheduling strategy based on tabu search is proposed, along with methods for constructing initial feasible solutions and search neighborhoods. Finally, specific computational examples verify that the proposed method has high efficiency, can solve large-scale minimum cycle scheduling problems, and has wide applicability. Keywords: Robot manufacturing cell; Maximal algebra; Tabu search; Cyclic scheduling 0 Introduction Flexible manufacturing cells mainly consist of processing equipment and logistics equipment. Both parts have a certain degree of versatility, thus enabling the processing and transportation of different types of workpieces. Traditional cell scheduling methods often only consider the allocation of tasks on processing equipment, neglecting the impact of logistics equipment on the production process. This neglect essentially assumes that the logistics equipment has a sufficiently large transport capacity to meet the needs of the processing equipment at any time. This assumption may be appropriate for dedicated logistics equipment, but for material handling robots shared by multiple processing devices, logistics transmission often becomes a bottleneck affecting system efficiency. In this case, ignoring the impact of logistics equipment not only fails to achieve the expected performance indicators but may also cause system deadlock, rendering the scheduling scheme infeasible. This paper studies a type of sequential processing unit using an industrial robot as the material handling device. This manufacturing unit consists of a central robot, processing equipment, input/output buffers, etc. Workpieces are loaded into the manufacturing unit from the input buffer for processing and sent out from the output buffer after processing. The loading and unloading of workpieces on the processing equipment, as well as the transfer process between equipment, are all completed by the robot. The manufacturing unit adopts a cyclic production method. After processing one batch, the equipment immediately begins processing the next batch of workpieces. The type and quantity of workpieces contained in each batch, and the proportion of products required to be produced, are called the "Minimal Part Set" (MPS). [Original text: Modeling and Task Scheduling Strategies for Robotic Manufacturing Units.pdf]