Make operator pick item from conveyor

Question

question

Yunhao L asked Jun 12 2022 at 9:43 AM Jeanette F commented Jul 16 2022 at 9:43 PM

Make operator pick item from conveyor

Hello,

I am new to flexsim and I am still trying to figure out things.

My model has a conveyor and different items (let say X and Y).

Imagine at the end of the conveyor are the following elements: X X Y X X. As currently is, my operator is picking up the first element to arrive to the end of the conveyor. Is there any way to make the operator to select which item to pick? Would be nice if the operator could be decide that using an parameter since my idea is to do an RL connector.

Software Version:

FlexSim 22.1.1

conveyors operators reinforcement learning

· 1

______

Cookie preferences

Your privacy is important to us and so is an optimal experience. To help us customize information and build applications, we collect data about your use of this site.

May we collect and use your data?

Learn more about the Third Party Services we use and our Privacy Statement.

Strictly necessary – required for our site to work and to provide services to you

These cookies allow us to record your preferences or login information, respond to your requests or fulfill items in your shopping cart.

YES

Improve your experience – allows us to show you what is relevant to you

These cookies enable us to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we use to deliver information and experiences tailored to you. If you do not allow these cookies, some or all of these services may not be available for you.

YES

NO

Customize your advertising – permits us to offer targeted advertising to you

These cookies collect data about you based on your activities and interests in order to show you relevant ads and to track effectiveness. By collecting this data, the ads you see will be more tailored to your interests. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

YES

NO

Are you sure you want a less customized experience?

We can access your data only if you select "yes" for the categories on the previous screen. This lets us tailor our marketing so that it's more relevant for you. You can change your settings at any time by visiting our privacy statement

Your experience. Your choice.

We care about your privacy. The data we collect helps us understand how you use our products, what information you might be interested in, and what we can improve to make your engagement with Autodesk more rewarding.

May we collect and use your data to tailor your experience?

Explore the benefits of a customized experience by managing your privacy settings for this site or visit our Privacy Statement to learn more about your options.

Answer 1 · 2022-06-13T07:43:38Z

Felix Möhlmann answered Jun 13 2022 at 7:43 AM Jeanette F commented Jul 16 2022 at 9:43 PM

I'd suggest to use a list for this. First, increase the size of the exit transfer on the conveyor so can 'hold' more than one item.

Then create a global list and set the exit transfer to push items to that list in the 'Send To Port' option.

By adding 'fields' to the list you can then use a query when pulling from the list to filter and/or sort the items on the list. In the attached example, each item is assigned a 'prio' label between 0 and 10. Items with a higher priority are pulled first.

I use a process flow to control the operator. But you can also use the 'Pull Strategy' input option of fixed resources to pull from the list directly. (Note though, that a queue will pull items up to its maximum capacity when available. So it would pull all items as soon as they enter the exit transfer region, as long as it has capacity)

PullFromConveyor.fsm

More information as well as a tutorial about lists can be found in the online manual.

https://docs.flexsim.com/en/22.1/ConnectingFlows/Lists/KeyConceptsLists/KeyConceptsLists.html

https://docs.flexsim.com/en/22.1/Tutorials/ProcessFlow/Tutorial1UsingSharedAssets/UsingSharedAssetsOverview/UsingSharedAssetsOverview.html

1655105778101.png (52.8 KiB)

1655105823099.png (5.0 KiB)

1655105988276.png (20.2 KiB)

pullfromconveyor.fsm (68.5 KiB)

· 4

Yunhao L commented · Jul 10 2022 at 3:21 PM

Is it possible to make the operator to pull by an item type given by an action parameter?

Something like this would it be possible?

For example, doing this gives an exception of invalid SQL query

WHERE Type=Model.parameters.SelectItemType ORDER BY ageInQueue DESC

0 ·

1657466466825.png (26.9 KiB)

Felix Möhlmann Yunhao L commented · Jul 10 2022 at 3:38 PM

You can, but you have to enclose the FlexScript expression (Model.parameters.SelectItemType) in curly braces {}.

Alternatetively, you could first write that parameter value to a label on the token and use that label in the query (puller.labelName).

Or you could create a dynamic expression field for the list that checks if the entry matches the parameter. The expression would either evaluate to 0 (false) or 1 (true).

0 ·

1657467416364.png (9.6 KiB)

1657467476948.png (15.8 KiB)

Yunhao L Felix Möhlmann commented · Jul 16 2022 at 4:45 PM

Thank you very much! That was exactly what I was looking for.

There's a new question that came into my mind. If the query WHERE Type = {Model.parameters.SelectedItemType} ORDER BY ageInQueue DESC results in empty, is there any way to introduce an "else" query?

0 ·

Show more comments

question