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mohammadmajd avatar image
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mohammadmajd asked Jason Lightfoot commented

Combine Recipe

Hello, I have 10 raw materials and 15 items. Items are created by combining different portions of the raw materials. I have built a model that simulate this process but I was wondering if there is any other approach that is more efficient. Currently I have 10 different ports for my raw materials and in my real-world problem there are many more raw types. Is there a way to avoid having separate ports for each raw? Also, for the combiner is there a way to specify different processing times for different raw materials?

combine recipe 02.fsm

FlexSim 23.0.3
combiner
combine-recipe-02.fsm (36.4 KiB)
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1 Answer

Kavika F avatar image
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Kavika F answered Jason Lightfoot commented

Hey @MohammadMajd, I think I have a solution that may work for you. It's a simple layout but powerful solution.

1699034571838.png

I started by making a Process Flow that is in charge of making the raw material in a queue.

1699034558934.png

The change visual is just to color the boxes so you can differentiate different material as they're used in recipes. I used the same table you used in your model to spawn them. Same goes for spawning items; however, I took a different approach for those.

1699034645102.png

I viewed items coming in as "Requests for materials". So what I did was push all raw material to a list so I could pull them from that list. Essentially, I took each incoming recipe and got their required ingredients from the Recipe table (that you provided). I made a Map of their raw material and how much. Then I pulled that amount of each from the list. I moved them into the "IngredientQueue" for a second before moving them into the Combiner. Then I have them wait there, combining them with a pallet. I move the finished product to a queue.

From here, instead of combining the ingredients with a pallet, you could transform that pallet and the ingredients into a different shape and color to signify their combination. Hope this helps.

combine-recipe_4.fsm


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Jason Lightfoot avatar image Jason Lightfoot ♦♦ commented ·

You could also look at the opportunistic combiner example model, which doesn't allocate any until it has all those needed for an assembly.

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mohammadmajd avatar image mohammadmajd commented ·
Thank you Kevin! This was very helpful.
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mohammadmajd avatar image mohammadmajd commented ·
@Kavika F I went through your model and understood the overall function of the ProcessFlow. But I have some questions about the details of it. Is it possible to set up a call so I can ask my questions?
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Kavika F avatar image Kavika F ♦ mohammadmajd commented ·

@MohammadMajd What questions do you have? Other users may have those same questions. If you post them here I can respond to them.

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mohammadmajd avatar image mohammadmajd Kavika F ♦ commented ·
1. How can I learn more about lists? Specifically how the list is connected to the Recipe table?

2. How can I modify this model to use operators to transport and process raw materials?

3. How can I have specific delay times for each raw material/item?

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