question

Daniel Saravia avatar image
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Daniel Saravia asked Ben Wilson commented

How not to mix items types by TE in process flow?

I have a list with flow items that have different priorities(0-3). The priority has been set in a label called Priority (0-3). I was able to pull the tokens in order using the label "priority" by a TE. The TE has a label "capacity" that determines the number of flow items to pick (4). I am trying to make the TE not to mix "priority" 1 and 2 with 3. In other words if there is not more "priority" 1 and 2 available finish the task sequence and not try to pick 1 or 2 more items of "priority" 3 to complete his TS . Same thing If TE is picking "priority" 3 because there are not 1 and 2 available complete the TS if priority 1 and 2 become available at that moment.

CPU Practice2_31.fsm

FlexSim 20.2.2
processflowitem list
cpu-practice2-31.fsm (394.9 KiB)
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1 Answer

Regan Blackett avatar image
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Regan Blackett answered Ben Wilson commented

Here's a sample model with a version of how you could go about doing this. There might be a way to do it with a single SQL query, but my approach was to pull a single item from the list, sorted by priority. If the item is priority 1 or 2, create a label with a query that will allow subsequent pulls to be only Priority 1 or 2. Otherwise, the query will only pull Priority 3.

Then I created a task sequence to transport the items. The first step is to load the one thing that was pulled so far, then check to see if the transporter is below it's maximum capacity. If it is, pull one more item according to the Query label, load it, and recheck the transporter capacity.

The Pull is also using a maximum wait timer that will let the transporter finish loading if there isn't a matching item ready to be pulled. Once everything that was pulled is loaded, travel to the destination and unload all items. I put the Unload tasks into a subflow that adds an unload task to the tasksequence for every item that was pulled.

This might be overengineerd a little bit, because I saw some times when a valid item was left behind because of the timing of when a pull vs a load took place. I also made a version that allows the transporter to wait until it has reached it's capacity before unloading if you'd like to see it done that way. Simply connect/disconnect the source activities in the flow to compare the two.

pullfiltering_1.fsm


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Daniel Saravia avatar image Daniel Saravia commented ·

@Regan Blackett, I did use some of your logic and I was able to make it work. But I do have 2 flow items (priority 3) on the list that I cannot push until other priorities become available.

CPU Practice2_36.fsm

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Ben Wilson avatar image Ben Wilson ♦♦ Daniel Saravia commented ·

Hi @Daniel Saravia,

Sorry, it looks like we missed this follow-up question. Do you still need help? If so, please repost your model - the image and model link are broken in your comment above.

Your link and attached model may still appear to work for you if you're in the same browser you used to originally post - this is because they are cached in your browser. If you were to try from a different browser you would see the broken links like I do. This is a bug we've reported to the AnswerHub platform wherein if you create a post with attachments, then edit the post, the attachments are lost.

Sorry for the delay and the attachment-inconvenience.

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