Patent ID: 11858134
Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
Field: Handling (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G  H  Y | IPC B  G

Claim 0:
1. A system, comprising:
a plurality of robotic cells that are each configurable to perform a plurality of manufacturing processing steps in a manufacturing process, wherein:
each robotic cell includes a set of end effectors and is operable to select from the set of end effectors a selected set of end effectors to perform an assigned manufacturing process step, wherein the assigned manufacturing processing step is one of the manufacturing processing steps in the manufacturing process; and
the set of end effectors for each robotic cell includes end effectors to form a selected set for at least one of the manufacturing processing steps;

a manufacturing execution system in data communication with each of the robotic cells that is configured to:
receive data describing a status of the manufacturing process, the data describing, for each robotic cell configured to perform a manufacturing processing step, a status of the robotic cell;
based on the status of each of the robotic cells described by received data:
determine that reconfiguring a first robotic cell will increase utilization of manufacturing equipment; and
in response to determining that reconfiguring the first robotic cell will increase utilization of manufacturing equipment, determine that the first robotic cell performing a first manufacturing processing step is to be reconfigured to perform a second manufacturing processing step, wherein the second manufacturing processing step is different from the first manufacturing processing step; and
in response to determining that first robotic cell performing the first manufacturing processing step is to be reconfigured to perform the second manufacturing processing step, instruct the first robotic cell to reconfigure from a selected first set of end effectors for performing the first manufacturing processing step to a selected second set of end effectors for performing the second manufacturing processing step.