Addressing 2 Different Queues based on Labels

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Steven N asked Jul 6, '21 Eric M commented Jul 20, '21

Addressing 2 Different Queues based on Labels

This is the last question I have for this model. Apologies if this may seem on going, and I truly appreciate all the help I've received.

In the simulation I have a processor called "Tray Sealer". This Tray sealer has 2 queues feeding it, called "TraySealerQueue" and "Reworks". After the flow items leave the "DeviceQtyDist" they all have a label called "WONum". Labels with the same value are distinguished by the same colors. Each color represents a Work Order Number (WONum)

As the simulation runs there will be flow items coming out of the "Final Insp" processor that need to be reworked and sent to the "Rework" queue. My question is;

Is it possible that after the Tray Sealer finishes the current color flow items it is working on, can it then address all the flow items in the "Rework" queue, and resume addressing the "Tray Sealer" queue afterwards?

Example for clarity;

Lets say;

Tray Sealer Queue currently has flow items with the colors yellow, orange, and blue. The Tray Sealer processor is currently addressing just the blue flow items. After it finishes the blue flow items and before moving on to the orange and yellow flow items, can it address all flow items in the Rework Queue? After all items in the Rework Queue has been completed, the processor can go ahead and resume processing from orange and yellow flow items from the Tray Sealer Queue.

What I am trying to represent in real life is. An Operator would be working on a Work Order of "X" number of devices, and at the same time there are devices that need to be re-packaged and are waiting in the Rework queue. Once the operator finishes the current work order, and before moving onto the next work order, they will address all items in the Rework Queue. Once all rework devices have been completed, they can go ahead and resume their current task and move onto the next work order from the Tray Sealer queue.

I think it will make more sense when you run the simulation. Thanks ahead of time!

Software Version:

FlexSim 19.2.4

queues flow items flowmanagement queues

option-2-no-card.fsm (88.9 KiB)

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Eric M commented · Jul 19, 2021 at 07:33 PM

Hi @Steven N, was one of the answers below helpful? If so, please click the red "Accept" button at the bottom of the answer. Or if you still have questions, add a comment and we'll continue the conversation.

If we haven't heard back from you within 3 business days we'll auto-accept an answer, but you can always unaccept and comment back to reopen your question.

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Answer 1 · 2021-07-07T20:12:42Z

Steven N answered Jul 7, '21 Eric M commented Jul 20, '21

@Eric M - I know you are pretty familiar with my model at this point. Please let me know if you see a potential solution.

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Eric M commented · Jul 08, 2021 at 04:01 PM

Just a couple questions for you. Do you want the tray sealer to stop accepting items until all items of one type have gone through the final inspection processor? For example, do you want all the red items to go through final inspection before any green item is accepted by the tray sealer? That way any red reworks can be reprocessed before any green items are accepted? And what about multiple reworks. Do you want to wait until all red items have moved on to the Good Device Rack before the tray sealer will accept any green items? I'm just wondering because that would result in a lot of down time for the TraySealer while it waits to make sure all items of one work order are cleared before starting another.

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Steven N Eric M commented · Jul 08, 2021 at 07:19 PM

Hey Eric, thank you for getting back to me.

For the first part of your question regarding do I want all red items to go through final inspection before any green items is accepted by the tray sealer, the answer is yes. (Assuming only one item for rework)
For multiple reworks - Is it possible for the tray sealer to finish processing the color it is currently working on at the time, then not accept the next color for the Tray Sealer queue, and process all reworks?
- If it is not possible to do this then I can settle for the tray sealer to process all red items including reworks before accepting the green ones.

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Eric M Steven N commented · Jul 09, 2021 at 04:29 PM

Hey Steven, I think I've find something that works. The process flow works by singling out items in the same Work Order and performing all of the tasks they need before letting any other items move forward in their process. The Reworks happen after all the items for that work order have left the TraySealerQueue.

To do this, I create a token for each item and use the process flow from before to assign the BatchSize to each one of those tokens. They are then allowed to enter the Zone and immediately set the zone size to their batch size (meaning only one Work Order group in the zone at once). I then use process flow to acquire the operator and move the items into the TraySealer (instead of connections in the 3d model). When the item leaves the FinalInsp processor, its corresponding token gets a reference to what port it was sent out of (1 moving on, 2 to rework). A decide activity then routes the tokens based on whether they are needing rework or not. Because the rework tokens are forced to acquire the Operator, they are in line behind all of the other tokens in the TraySealerQueue of that work order which is how the reworks are completed only after all other items have been processed.

I also noticed there was a flaw in the last code for setting the final queue batch quantity if the first item in the batch was reworked. To fix this, I changed the "Update Batch Size" code to be in the new flow. That way the first item in the batch to get to the final queues will be able to set the batch size. The Batch activity, Open Zone Limit code, and Breathe activities at the end are all used to get the timing right for letting new tokens into the zone to be processed.

I know this is kind of a lot, so let me know if you have any questions about how things are working.

option-2-no-card_2.fsm

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option-2-no-card-2.fsm (105.9 KiB)

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Answer 2 · 2021-07-08T12:53:53Z

Joerg Vogel answered Jul 8, '21

I would try to work with partitioned lists. Each partition holds items of Work Order Number and a partition for the Rework Queue. You decide when an partition gets empty which partition the Tray Feeder is getting items from next. You set a priority to check items on the partition for Rework Queue first by list length on this partition.

Answer 3 · 2021-07-07T08:17:02Z

Ralf Gruber answered Jul 7, '21 Steven N commented Jul 7, '21

Steven,

I think you are just looking to process the items in sequence of their WONum label values. If so, you can just seelct the Pull Strategy "Pull Best Item" on the Tray Sealer:

Does that do the trick?

pullbestitem.png (19.6 KiB)

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Steven N commented · Jul 07, 2021 at 02:27 PM

@Ralf Gruber Thank you for replying. I've made the edits in accordance to your screen shot. However with those changes, when a flow item ends up in the Rework queue, it got addressed immediately, regardless if the current color in the Tray Sealer Queue was completed or not.

What I am trying to achieve, is for the Tray Sealer processor to finish completing it's current task (Lets say all yellow colored flow items in the Tray Sealer Queue). Then once all the yellow flow items have been finished processing, then the Tray Sealer will focus it's attention on completing all flow items in Rework Queue. After that it would resume processing from the Tray Sealer Queue.

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