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Santhosh C avatar image
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Santhosh C asked Jason Lightfoot commented

Close and Open port logic for a Combiner when Item going through the combiner

Can someone help me to write a logic for the following scenario:

I created a model for one of the machining processes with 3 processors,1 combiner, 1 separator, and a Task executor and I am using 6 fixtures for the whole process.

Each processor can hold only 2 fixtures. One should be in the processor and the other one should be waiting in the queue.

The combiner will send the raw material and the separator will receive the Finished good material from all the 3 processors. after the material is processed, the Task executor will be the transporter between the processor and the separator and combiner

Request: I do not want both the combiner and separator to work at the same time. I used close and open ports logic but once the raw material enters the combiner, the separator also accepts the finished good from the processor. Can anyone help me write a logic for "Combiner should not allow until the separator finishes the process and vice versa?

Thank you.

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Joerg Vogel avatar image Joerg Vogel commented ·
@Santhosh C, first of all you should never control input or output PORTS of fixed resource objects, besides it is a continuous flow object you want to control. This said, You control the INPUT and OUTPUT in general of involved objects by closing or opening them. You must be certain that a chain of events can get fulfilled, when items are going through your process. If you close an output and you want to open it in an following event in a next object by an item that gets stopped by this closed output, this condition chain can never be fulfilled.

I think you are able to build a logical chain of events from entering, beginning and finishing processing and exiting objects to close and open inputs and outputs of objects yourself. I wish you success on that!

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Kavika F avatar image Kavika F ♦ commented ·
Hey @Santhosh C, do you have a model, screenshot, and/or layout of your process? That would be helpful in identifying how you want your process to operate.
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Santhosh C avatar image Santhosh C Kavika F ♦ commented ·

1699572611696.png

Thanks for your Quick response. Here is the screenshot.

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1699572611696.png (177.4 KiB)
Jason Lightfoot avatar image Jason Lightfoot ♦♦ commented ·

Hi @Santhosh C, was Jason Lightfoot'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 comment back to reopen your question.

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Jason Lightfoot avatar image
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Jason Lightfoot answered Jason Lightfoot edited

If you can, please post your model for us to help set it up. You can toggle this post as private if needed.

Without initial WIP the combiner must be allowed to independantly combine and send to the processors otherwise you'll never receive anything at the separator. If the combiner is performing a 'kitting' function for each processor, then can it not create (one or two) kits for each processor before it must wait for the separator to split a kit from a processor? If so this may be best controlled through a process flow and lists such that you can easily keep track of all the kits assigned to processors. Or if you have a finite number of fixtures you could just recirculate those to limit the kitting process.

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