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How do I randomize the filling of the racks?

Hello. I'd like to have a version of randomized storage where the items are placed in the racks in no particular order but fill up all the spaces. Some of the boxes are different sizes so when I try to randomize the placement only one small box is placed in a slot and a good portion of the items stays in the queue. I also tried batching the items before sending them to the racks, for example items of category 3 in batches of 8, but the items still got stuck in the queue.

Current State Simulation.fsm

FlexSim 24.0.2
random storagstorage organization
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5 |100000

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Jeanette F avatar image Jeanette F ♦♦ commented ·

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Felix Möhlmann answered

The slot stacking doesn't really work with items of different dimensions. The best result you will get without writing your own stacking and "hasSpace" code (which is a very complex topic) would probably be to only space items of the same category into a slot.

This is much easier to achieve when the slot assignation is moved to a Process Flow. In the Find Slot activity you can stagger the slot queries. In the attached model the first query searches for a slot that has a matching label. If that query is not successful, the second query searches for a random empty slot (product label == 0, all slots start with the label set to 0). Afterwards the slot label is updated to that of the item. As a result, the logic will first try to fill up slots of the same category before moving on to the next.

Even with this approach the racks simply do not offer enough space for all items of category 4, let alone 5.

1712302821843.png

Do the five racks on the right have less depth on purpose? Just asking, because if all slots had the same size you could batch the items, the only search for an empty slot for the batch once and thus speed up the initial filling process significantly.

current-state-simulation_1.fsm


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