Hi everyone, I'd like to build a slug of boxes with a pattern 3x3v but I can't figure out how to stack multiple lines. Any help?
Horizontal slug building
FlexSim 23.2.3
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Conveyors in FlexSim are not really made to allow for items to travel alongside each other. The best you will get without too much effort is likely going to be staggered lines like below. The items technically overlap along the length of the conveyor but were translated to the sides.
What other options might be usable will depend on how the items are supposed to continue. If they should move on as a single unit, then I'd place them on an invisible carrier item.
If they move on as individual items, using three separate conveyors that run in parallel and control the batching through Photo Eyes/Decision Points and a Process Flow would be my choice.
Or you push the option of reducing the stopping space to the extreme and allow the items to practically travel completely in parallel. But then you will need a lot of logic to prevent them from overlapping.
The attached model below is a basic proof-of-concept. It will have issues as soon as any unplanned stops happen on either conveyor.
What about using a combiner and putting the boxes in an invisible pallet? Can I even make an invisible pallet (or in general an invisible container flowitem)? That way they would look like separate object but to che conveyor it'd be a single big object
Yes, but then you'll not have items 'peel off' the front row unless you implement something more sophisticated.
You could also consider using the Mass Flow Conveyor.
Remark: you can translate visually items side by side or you can build patterns of them. BUT internally of this conveyor module all of them behave like they are still in a single sequential line of items. A photo eye won’t consider a visual pattern of items to trigger an action.
if you need a special behavior for a cluster of items I suggest that you set involved items in direction of movement on a conveyor system to be extremely small. Then any deviation of item event is very small because internally the single line of items is much shorter then, if they trigger event, when they are moving side by side.
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