Routing Items Based on Availability

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Aaupadhye asked Jun 27, '23 Julie Weller answered Jul 5, '23

Routing Items Based on Availability

Hi all,

The issue I am running into is that I want arrivals from queue 1 to flow into both Pack Station A and Pack Station B but only based on availability. If one arrival is sent to Pack Station A I want the corresponding box to flow to Box Station A, which triggers the operator to run a task sequence to combine the arrival and box and then unload this on the other conveyor (very similar to a model @Natalie White showed me wcocsim2-a.fsm ). When an arrival hits the pack station it should no longer accept any other arrivals until the operator is done with the task sequence, and the next arrival should go to Pack Station B along with the corresponding box also going to box station B. The task sequence part seems intuitive, however, I am struggling with figuring out how to complete this task using two operators since the boxes default to taking the side conveyor to Box Station B. In summary, I want each arrival to go to a pack station based on if the operator is completed with the entire operation, and I want the corresponding box to show up at the box station. I am confused on how to route both the arrivals and the conveyor to do this.

createboxbasedonlabel-1.fsm

Thanks,

Amit

Software Version:

FlexSim 23.0.8

conveyors tasksequence routing

wcocsim2-a.fsm (62.3 KiB)

createboxbasedonlabel-1.fsm (65.0 KiB)

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Attachments: Up to 12 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 23.8 MiB each and 47.7 MiB total.

Julie Weller commented · Jun 27, 2023 at 05:24 PM

Hi @Aaupadhye! It looks like you want to use decision points. You can set up 3 decision points like this:

(Make sure you use an A connection to connect the upstream decision points to the lower decision points). Then you can use an input trigger and either Area Restrictions (this will require a trigger on the first and second decision point) or Send Item by Case to decide where to send the items! You might need to explore what works best, there's more info on docs.flexsim.com about that!

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1687886344807.png (102.8 KiB)

Aaupadhye Julie Weller commented · Jun 27, 2023 at 06:57 PM

Decision points seem like a great way to route the boxes, however, I want to take a step back and make sure that the arrivals actually get to my pack stations before I worry about the boxes.

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Julie Weller Aaupadhye commented · Jun 27, 2023 at 08:33 PM

Hmmm I think I was confused where the items to pack from were coming from, you could use an On Entry trigger to close input ports and then an On Exit trigger to open the input ports again, you would just put those on your pack station, is that what you're trying to do?

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Answer 1 · 2023-06-27T22:51:15Z

Julie Weller answered Jun 27, '23

The reason the model is crashing is because on the 3rd batch the items are continually being removed from the list and then readded (forever). You would need to change your logic to deal with that, I added a Wait for Event Activity that waits for Pack Station A's send to port:

You can see the token waiting there in this picture. That lets the model get further but then it stalls because nothing is happening after this so you will probably need to do the packing at this point.

1687906158019.png (30.5 KiB)

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Aaupadhye commented · Jun 27, 2023 at 11:13 PM

Is the "Stall" this error?

time: 20.000000 exception: Error: Invalid triggering event, event rank 1, at wait for event activity "Wait for Event" in process flow "ProcessFlow"

Also, i'm not too sure why the arrival of one item isn't being sent to the autobagger, since I have the location set to that when the length is less than 5.

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Julie Weller Aaupadhye commented · Jun 28, 2023 at 03:38 PM

I think the issue is more the setup of the process flow never reaches a conclusion

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