Using Target Product ID in a Fluid Blender

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Carson M asked Sep 7, '22 Kavika F commented Sep 9, '22

Using Target Product ID in a Fluid Blender

I am creating a model that is attempting to simulate a fluid blending operation. This operation has one base component (A), and is either mixed at a 40/60 ratio with products B, C, or D, based on what is being ordered in the final product.

In real life, all products (A/B/C/D) will be loaded into a day tank before going to a single inline blender, represented as a FluidBlender in the model, to make final products A/B, A/C, A/D that are loaded into totes and shipped to the customer.

If we use only one single FluidBlender in the model, it appears that it only has the option to produce one Target Product ID and will not reference which original Type of component is on the input port.

Also, even if there were 3 FluidBlenders being used (one for each product type), I am not finding a way to reference the Target Product ID in the following step (FluidToItem), to give it a label as to what the final product is.

I have attached a sample model that is currently just showing one FluidBlender and FluidToItem. What is the best way to pull products A/B, A/C, and A/D through the model following a schedule or other event driven pull system? Currently I am just forcing the arrivals to be sequenced so that it happens naturally, however in real life all of the fluid would be available in a warehouse and would be pulled to the mix system based on the orders coming in.

Software Version:

FlexSim 19.2.4

fluid fluid mixer fluid blender

fluidblender-mixing-jpeg.jpg (56.9 KiB)

Answer 1 · 2022-09-08T19:07:17Z

Kavika F answered Sep 8, '22 Kavika F commented Sep 9, '22

Hey @Carson M, here's a solution you could try. You can download my modifications here.

On each of the Drums, I added a label called "Tag" with their corresponding letter.

Then I added a simple Process Flow to create the corresponding Target Product ID.

The Source spawns a token any time a barrel enters one of the lower drums (B, C, or D). It grabs the letter from the "Tag" label and appends it to a string to Make the Product ID.

Then I assign this ID to the Final Tote Fill object. On the Final Tote Fill, I have an OnExit trigger for totes leaving the object. It will set the label "ProductID" on the Totes and change the color depending on that ID.

Here's what it looks like when it runs fast.

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fluidtotelabel.gif (224.0 KiB)

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Carson M commented · Sep 09, 2022 at 01:25 PM

FluidBlender2JPEG.jpeg

Thank you for the detailed reply. This solution will work as long as there is only one type of drum being loaded into the FluidToItem at any given time, because the ProcessFlow is changing the label on the Final Tote Fill object and it isn't actually following the fluid. I assume there is no way to assign a label to fluid itself unlike items.

I have uploaded another version where I simply changed the arrival of white and black drums so that they arrive at time 0 and 1. You can see that even though the white (A/B) was loaded into the mixer first, it is assigning the "A/C" label to the final product because that was the last type of drum loaded in the "DiffDrums" group that you created in the ProcessFlow trigger source.

Is there any way to utilize the "ProductID" on a FluidMixer / FluidBlender / FluidToItem object?

In real life, many drums of different kinds (B/C/D) will be available at the same time, and they will be loaded into the day tanks and run through the blender on a schedule. I was thinking of using a "Push To List" flow from the original queue, and then using Process Flow or 3D to Pull the items into the day tanks on some type of schedule. If you have any thoughts please let me know.

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Felix Möhlmann Carson M commented · Sep 09, 2022 at 02:17 PM

You can define fluid components in the Ticker. After setting those up, you can specify the composition of the fluid that is created from the items in the ItemToFluid objects (Inital Product).

The software will then track the composition of the fluid as it moves through the model and is mixed together. To be honest, I don't know how to relate a certain composition to a product ID (apart from the Initial Product of the ItemToFluid). But you can read the component values from the tree of the FluidToItem object and use it to define a label on the item in the exit trigger.

58307-fluidblender2_fm.jpg

(Rightclick on the file attachment -> Save Link/Target As (might be called differently depending on the browser) -> Set "Save as type" to All Types -> Save with a name ends with .fsm)

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Kavika F ♦ Carson M commented · Sep 09, 2022 at 02:50 PM

Yes as Felix stated above, you can assign Product IDs to Drums. As the fluid travels through the pipes, the content of the downstream objects will update. Here's another example you could look at in addition to Felix's.

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