Batched Picking with variable Capacity Limit to Operator in Processflow

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Newbie asked Apr 24, '24 Newbie commented Apr 24, '24

Batched Picking with variable Capacity Limit to Operator in Processflow

Hi,

I have a fairly simple task of picking and moving items from one store to another store and struggle to get it working as desired.

1. I have a order list (based on history) with orders which have several Product Types and quantities.

2. One or more operators have to pick the orders and transfer them to an outbound store by sorting each order to a different storage bay.

3. However the operator can only load a certain amount of Items at once depending on the type of product.

I have had different approaches with batching but they did not bring the desired result. The only good result I got when I added a zone to limit the quantity of tokens within the zone depending on the product.

This approach however does not work when I have more than one operator. Also when 2 different products enter the zone the limitation is for each product, so actually allowing the operator to pick up both.

Attached is a simplified model to show the process and the current Processflow.

I would appreciate any support here.

KR

Order_SIm_02.fsm

Software Version:

FlexSim 24.0.2

batch order picking

order-sim-02.fsm (78.3 KiB)

Answer 1 · 2024-04-24T08:26:37Z

Felix Möhlmann answered Apr 24, '24 Newbie commented Apr 24, '24

I would recommend to first collect all items that should be moved together on a single token. Then that token can acquire an operator and start the transport.

If the operator should only transport items of a single type, you can batch the tokens by orderID and item type, with the batch quantity depending on the type.

If transporting a mix of items is possible, I would add a "Weight" label to the items. Then batch the tokens up to a maximum total of that label.

order-sim-02-fm.fsm

Important note: You currently search for any item in a storage somewhere. Meaning that items that have already been commissioned are valid to be found.

You can for example use the zoneID in the default addressing scheme, to only search for items that are currently sitting in specific storage objects.

order-sim-02-fm.fsm (68.0 KiB)

· 1

Newbie commented · Apr 24 at 10:20 AM

Hi Felix,

Thank you for your correction and detailed explanation. That works.

I will try both ways (by Type and by weight) and see which would fit best for my case.

kr

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