Floor storage with spacing between stacked items

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Paulo S20 asked May 20, '22 Jeanette F commented May 26, '22

Floor storage with spacing between stacked items

Hello everyone,

I'm very new at this so please be patient.

I'm trying to create a system similar to the attached image using the storage system objects available in FlexSim. In my understanding, the approach would be something between the floor storage object, which allows for a grid on the floor, and the rack system which allows for many different vertical shelves.

What would be the best way to approach this? If I were to use normal racking, I can't get the "depth" I need in one storage object. In other words, one shelf = 1 "line". The system is something like many bays of of racking scrunched up against each other as a cohesive storage system.

When I try to use floor storage, I can get very close, but the issue is that I need to have a certain amount of space between the flow items (totes). They are not actually stacked on top of each other, but just positioned close to each other in shelving.

Any guidance on how to do this would be appreciated. Thanks so much.

Software Version:

FlexSim 22.0.3

warehouse floor storage

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1653015870593.png (10.9 KiB)

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Jeanette F ♦♦ commented · May 26, 2022 at 03:04 PM

Hi @Paulo S20, was Joerg Vogel's answer helpful? If so, please click the "Accept" button at the bottom of their 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 · 2022-05-20T04:41:48Z

Joerg Vogel answered May 20, '22 Paulo S20 commented May 20, '22

The answer for this is called slot padding

Reference Manual: Storage Object > The Dimension Window > Headline and Button Slot Padding

EDIT: Since a floorstorage hasn't got vertically levels, slot padding works only for front, back, left and right. Alternatively you can enhance the size of the items to fill a slot and set shape size relatively to look like a standard item.

On Creation Trigger I did this. You can do this dynamically on Entry and on Exit for a rack event.

Floorstorage_padding_by_shape.fsm

floorstorage-padding-by-shape.fsm (36.9 KiB)

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Paulo S20 commented · May 20, 2022 at 02:06 PM

Thank you so much for the great response!

Would there be a way to have that distance variable? The totes are stored in groups of 3, which are close together, and then there is a slightly bigger gap between the groups of three.

Would it be as simple as having different sized flow items, with every third having some more space? Or maybe even adding an invisible one between the "sections", that is not pickable or something?

Thanks!

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Joerg Vogel Paulo S20 commented · May 20, 2022 at 02:44 PM

You still have properties of storage object dimensions: bay, level, slot. If you change those values that a centered item gets a smaller gap to one side and bigger one to another side. You will get your desired result.

Alternatively you read the slot dimensions of the assigned slot and parse those values in the source code. As I have written an On Entry event can you use.

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