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Andrea F avatar image
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Andrea F asked Fiorenzo A commented

Floor Storage modelling

Hi everyone,

I am modelling a system that stores wood scantlings on the floor. I have some problems representing this model on flexim for that reason i would ask some suggestions. First i would like to describe the model. The scantlings are stored based on the cross sections. Everytime an order is issued an operator is retrieving the item first picking it with the transpallet to pick the pallet of scantlings. Sometime orders require to be build up by different single items present in different pallets; for that reason the operator may have to pick up the item manually from the pallet and put it on a queue to build the picking order. How can i represent on flexim the followings? :

- floor storage within already pallet stored with scantlings (the width of the floor storage is stochastic according to the scantlings measures)

- First step: the transpallet travel to the desired position according to an order retrieve the pallet with the item of interest and put it on the aisle

- Second step: unpack the pallet on the aisle and pick manually the item of interest

- Third step: bring the item retrieved to queue where the order is built through batching

- Fourth step: retrieve the next item required by the order repeating the First, Second and third Step

- Once the order is built on the queue, transport the batch of items to the output point ready to be delivered


Problems:

- The queue where the orders are built is moving according to where the item is in the warehouse in order to be close to the picking

- The scantlings are organized in pallet and one client order can require a single item from different pallets this item picking is performed manually by the operator moving the transpallet.

- Scantlings have different dimensions so the width of the storage floor bay van vary accordingly.


Below a representation of the warehouse and products. Do you have any suggestion to model this in Flexim?


FlexSim 19.2.4
warehouseflexsim 19.2.4pickingorder pickingfloor storage
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3 Answers

Fiorenzo A avatar image
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Fiorenzo A answered Fiorenzo A commented

Hi,

there are different ways to build the model.

First of all you could create an orders table. On the rows there are the orders and on the columns there are the different types of scantlings.

you could randomly fill the racks with pallets with the different panels type.

You could manage everything through process flow. Read the table of orders by row. For each row you could cycle over the columns and for each type of scantilings you could do 3 missions:

- Transport pallet to the storage floor area (this area colud be selected by making a pull from a StorageList and as a criterion could be used the distance between the rack where you picked up the first pallet and the object you must select)

- Move the n panels you need from the storage queue to composite queue . Move the object by operator onto a pallet already present in the queue (alternatively you can also set a combiner to do this).

- in the end move back the pallets in the rack.

Only when finish order you can carry the complete order and proceed with reading a new row of table, then a new order. If the order are finished, you can exit from the process.

This is only an idea as you can set the model.

I suggest you to use a more recent version of flexsim in which new process flow activities have been developed to more easily find an item inside a rack.


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Andrea F avatar image Andrea F commented ·
Hi Vincenzo sorry to disturb you do you remember what was the list function? i am just reviewing the process flow and i do not understand what i can push to the list. Is the list storing the tasks to be done by the transporter?

Thank you

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Fiorenzo A avatar image Fiorenzo A Andrea F commented ·
Hi Andrea,

I don't remember now, but reading the process I think that from the rack i push in the list the pallet lowitems, and so from the process I think i pulled them.

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Fiorenzo A avatar image
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Fiorenzo A answered Andrea F commented

Hi Andrea,

- In the process flow you can read the value of a globaltable cell on the token. To to this in the assign labels activity, in the value field you can select value from table. You can read in this way the value of the table.

In my mind you can do a cycle on the row of this table to read the orders, and a cycle, inside that, on the colums to read what do you need for each order.

In the attached example I simply do a cycle on the rows of the table and everytime I read the value in the first column. You can create loops as shown.

- the source links to composed order queue in the example above simply created an empty pallet to fill with the items pick up from the racks.In my mind the operator, by processflow, do the load unload and during the unload place the item in the pallet of the queue.test_w.fsm

- you can fill the werehouse in 0 time. You must size well the pallet that contains the 168 items. In this way flexsim fills the pallet in y direction with items ad long as it has space and then moves others item in subsequent levels. In attached model i show you a simply example.


I hope I was helpful,

bye


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Andrea F avatar image Andrea F commented ·

Thank you very much Fiorenzo it was really helpful!

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Andrea F avatar image
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Andrea F answered

Hi Fiorenzo,

Thank you for the relevant answer! How can i correlate the orders table to the process flow ? Do i have to sample it in the decision activity? Also what the source attached in the compose order does? And last question i would like to begin with an initial stock when the model start. To do that i put an initial source for pallet and scantlings. I created on the item bin different scantlings based on their lenghts and i would like to pack them on a pallet and store them on the floor storage. The pallet can pack 168 items so i want to pack different pallet and stack them on layers on the floor storage. Do you Know how can i do this in time 0 so to start the model within already packed and stored items?

I attach my model below

Warehouse.fsm


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