What's the simulation speed of Flexsim when handling a very big AS/RS system?

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Z8c9526489 asked Sep 16, '21 Benjamin W2 edited Sep 23, '21

What's the simulation speed of Flexsim when handling a very big AS/RS system?

Actually, I'm using other simulation software (but Felxsim) to build a large AS/RS system which has around 80000 storage cells, 33 cranes and dozens of AGVs.

The originally simulation software runs very slow although we have tried to optimize it. The speed is even slower than reality speed.

My question is, Can Flexsim run the simulation of this kind of size of warehouse with faster speed, and how fast Flexsim can achieve under condition that the system is optimized quite well.

We are considering change to other simulation software but still not sure if others can meet our requirement or not.

Software Version:

FlexSim 21.2.2

simulation speed simulation software comparision

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Answer 1 · 2021-09-17T01:19:27Z

Benjamin W2 answered Sep 17, '21 Benjamin W2 edited Sep 23, '21

Hi @Z8c9526489,

It really depends on what you are doing with the storage system. I created a model with around 50,000 storage slots with 24 ASRS s that was doing some heavy ORDER BY calculations and the model ran at about 10x real time.

FlexSim has 2 main pros in this scenario when it comes to speed. 1) it is a C++ based software, so it will squeeze as much juice out of your hardware as it can. 2) it has the ability to "virtualize" your flowitems, which optimizes the storage system's memory usage and helps it run faster (especially if you are doing anything with 3d).

Your hardware will make a difference too. You will want a good amount of RAM. I would say at least 32 gb, but more if possible. You will also want a processor with a high clock rate. A colleague of mine uses an i5-k series processor that works pretty well.

Feel free to share a more detail about your simulation and the calculations it will handle. I will see if I can get any more specific.

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Z8c9526489 commented · Sep 17, 2021 at 02:25 AM

Hi @Benjamin W2 ,Thanks very much for your responding. Some additional information of our system:

We have multi-floor in-bound and out-bound gates. Each floor has some AGVs. There are storage slots dedicated to each floor. The number of storage slots dedicated to each floor is around (Total # of storage slots / # of floors).
The work in each floor is totally separated except the cranes. Every floor shares the same cranes.

Does this multi-floor structure make simulation software run slowly?

Our computer specification is Intel i7-8700k ,Ram: 32gb, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

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Benjamin W2 Z8c9526489 commented · Sep 17, 2021 at 08:44 AM

@Z8c9526489 that is a pretty good set up. The big question is how do you decide which items need to be picked? Is it pre calculated on a spreadsheet or does the model need to do the calculations? If it is the model, then how complicated is the calculation?

The thing that tends to slow these models down is searching through and ordering the items. The fact that you split it up by floor will probably help it run faster, since each table of items will be smaller. How many flowitems are you dealing with total?

Depending on the complexity of the model, it may be worth talking to our sales department about doing either a sample model or proof-of-concept model to see how FlexSim could handle the load.

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Z8c9526489 Benjamin W2 commented · Sep 23, 2021 at 04:53 AM

@Benjamin W2 We have fixed number of in-bound and out-bound items per hour.

in-bound
- The way we put item in slots is like, we have a center for each crane, the crane put new item in the slot which has the least distance from the center.
out-bound
- We iterate the slots in that floor to find the demand item.
Both in-bound and out-bound process:
- Each crane has a work list. The above in-bound and out-bound tasks will be added in work list under a certain rule(e.g. To balance the workload, the crane handle the item dedicated to each floor equally ).

Do you think this logic connection between floor is ok? How to improve it more? Is there any specific Flexsim function can handle this multi-floor structure more efficiently?

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