How to change combiner Target Quantity dynamically depending on item labels?

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Sebastian M10 asked Jun 26, '21 Eric M answered Jun 30, '21

How to change combiner Target Quantity dynamically depending on item labels?

Hi, I would appreciate some help with combiners, I do not know much about them.

I have items created with variable labels (i.e. let's say each item has a label with values from an uniform distribution from 1 to 10) that go through a processor and then a combiner (which in port 1 has a different source only to prouce pallets, nothing else and in port 2 the rest of the items). I need to make the combiner to be able to keep combining until an acumulative label reaches a limit of, let's say, 150 (or closest as possible). The thing is that I do not know the way to keep the combiner doing its work since I do not know how many items would make the acumulative label reach its limit or the way to contact them without using global lists, just code, I've tried this so far but as I mentioned before, I don't know how to change the target quantity depending on a previous item's label value. Thanks in advance

Software Version:

FlexSim 21.1.4

combiner labels dynamic target quantity

pic.png (35.4 KiB)

Answer 1 · 2021-06-30T18:06:58Z

Eric M answered Jun 30, '21

Hi @Sebastian M10 I made an example using process flow of how you might go about doing this. The overall idea is that the process flow will move items into the pallet on the combiner as long as the total sum of the Weight label on the items doesn't surpass 150. This is controlled using a zone that calculates the sum of the Weight label and has a constraint that won't allow tokens to enter if they would increase the total to over 150. Right now, the Wait for Event activity is the driving force for when to release tokens from the zone. I have this set to being equal or greater than 139. As soon as this happens, the tokens will move through the flow, move the pallet on to the next queue, and exit the zone to allow the next batch to start forming on the combiner. I also assign a label called Weight to the pallets so it's easy to see how heavy each pallet is.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Total Weight in Combiner_1.fsm

total-weight-in-combiner-1.fsm (48.4 KiB)

Answer 2 · 2021-06-26T10:05:04Z

Joerg Vogel answered Jun 26, '21 Sebastian M10 commented Jun 26, '21

You can choose Update Component List by Global Table In the On Entry trigger of a combiner.

Then you can adjust the source code, which updates the combiners variables. There is a parchment roll icon to open the source code editor.

If I wouldn’t be experienced enough to do such a task, I would use only the predefined property of the combiner and change the global table values by another code. That is much simpler, than to understand the mechanism of updating combiner variables directly in a source code.

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Sebastian M10 commented · Jun 26, 2021 at 04:22 PM

But you can use it with X amount of item labels? Every example I found use Global Tables with specific item types or already defined situations and/or variables.

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Joerg Vogel Sebastian M10 commented · Jun 26, 2021 at 06:19 PM

Yes, it is possible, if you build a logic that updates at least both involved variables. If you have more than 2 input ports to receive items then there are more to update.

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Sebastian M10 Joerg Vogel commented · Jun 26, 2021 at 07:45 PM

How would you get each item label value then? Referencing the subnode?

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