Transport pallets to racks with different dimensions

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Felipe_Casanueva asked Nov 10, '23 Jason Lightfoot commented Nov 13, '23

Transport pallets to racks with different dimensions

Hi everybody,

I am creating a simulation model where pallets with boxes are created in a queue, so that a group of forklifts are then in charge of taking the pallets with boxes to racks (bay supports). I attach my model where you can see my logic in process flow. But I have a problem, I have bay supports of different dimensions, once all the available slots of one of the smaller bay supports are filled, the forklifts stop taking the pallets with product to the bay supports that still have available slots. I think the problem may be related to "Find slot" or the decision "slots left" with the first connector out when the token has failed in finding a slot.

Maybe someone can please advise me what I can do to solve this problem? I would also like to ask if my process flow is well designed so that when all the bay supports slots are filled, and then slots are freed, the forklifts can detect that spaces have been freed, and can start leaving the pallets there.

Here is the file in which I'm working on:

help_model.fsm

Thank you in advance

Software Version:

FlexSim 23.2.1

lists warehousing

help-model.fsm (68.2 KiB)

· 2

Joerg Vogel commented · Nov 11, 2023 at 04:08 AM

By default a bay has two slots. If you say you want to have bay support then you should consider to reduce number of slots in a bay to one. This way a method like hasSpace can put large items in a slot over a dimension of a bay and also more smaller products, too.

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Felipe_Casanueva Joerg Vogel commented · Nov 11, 2023 at 12:48 PM

Hi @Joerg Vogel, thank you for you answer. I checked the number of slots in a bay, and they are set to 1.

I think the bay supports are filling well, but I would like that when the smaller bay supports are filled, the forklifts can take the pallets with product to the bay supports that still have available slots, and I can't find yet why this doesn't happen in my simulation. I think the problem may be in the process flow. Maybe could you give it another look, please?

Thank you in advance.

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1699705145041.png (13.4 KiB)

Answer 1 · 2023-11-12T15:42:43Z

Jason Lightfoot answered Nov 12, '23 Jason Lightfoot commented Nov 13, '23

You have a couple of decide activities that are doing nothing - the arrow doesn't take it to createTokens but to the block of activities - the Travel in this case:

Same for your slots left check:

This is always pushing the rack to the list.

You can simplify this by using a common release and branching to either the tasksequence or the push Rack to list.

1699803573359.png (23.0 KiB)

1699803713005.png (10.7 KiB)

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Felipe_Casanueva commented · Nov 13, 2023 at 01:41 AM

Hi @Jason Lightfoot, thanks for your reply. I thought I understood what to do when I read your message , but I got confused. In which part should go the common release, is the release resource from the tasksequence?, and should I delete the decide activities? Maybe could you describe me a little bit how should it look please? Sorry for the inconvenience

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Jason Lightfoot ♦ Felipe_Casanueva commented · Nov 13, 2023 at 12:29 PM

Are you intended each transporter to fill one rack at a time? That seems to be your goal.

I think your intended logic was this:

But this won't work since you're trying to pull a rack every time and this logic will only put it back when empty.

Since the token represents the transporter you actually don't need to release/acquire it each time.

You only need to pull a new rack once the current one is full - so when the Rack label is null or the findSlot times out.

Lots of changes to consider.

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1699878158478.png (41.8 KiB)

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