Combiner: Sort part from ports

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question

Aitor Oyarbide asked Nov 24, '23 Jason Lightfoot commented Dec 4, '23

Combiner: Sort part from ports

Hi,

I have a conveyor that takes a Pallet, and then, I want to make layers of boxes in certain order.

For example: Pallet + Layer of 4 red boxes + Layer of 4 green boxes + Layer of 4 blue boxes + Layer of 4 green boxes and Layer of 4 red boxes.

How can I make (without using process flow PF):

1) Take boxes in certain order?

2) Take boxes from a port in two different moments of time? For example, red boxes go at the beginning (after the pallet) and at the end (last layer).

Thanks for your help.

Software Version:

FlexSim 23.1.0

combiners

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Jason Lightfoot ♦♦ commented · Dec 01, 2023 at 12:10 PM

Hi @Aitor Oyarbide, was one of Joerg Vogel's or Felix Möhlmann's answers helpful? If so, please click the "Accept" button at the bottom of the one that best answers your question. 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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Answer 1 · 2023-11-24T09:15:09Z

Felix Möhlmann answered Nov 24, '23 Jason Lightfoot commented Dec 4, '23

Three options that come to mind (in ascending order of complexicity based on my perception):

1. Activate the "Pull" option in the combiner's Input tab in the properties and use the Pull Requirement to limit which type of item the combiner is allowed to pull depending on whether or not there is a pallet present and how many items are already on that pallet.

2. Control which items are available to the combiner by closing/opening the output of the queues after each layer of 4 items.

3. "Cheat" a bit by having each layer be its own process. Utilize the option to update the combiner component list in its On Entry trigger so it only pulls items for one layer. After a layer is finished, do not release the pallet but instead move it back into the combiner after updating a label so the next layer uses a different component list.

combine-in-layers-fm.fsm

combine-in-layers-fm.fsm (36.9 KiB)

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Aitor Oyarbide commented · Nov 28, 2023 at 11:41 AM

Thanks Joerg and Felix for your answers. Some are tricky (and clever) and a bit beyond my level of understanding of Flexim but they make me think that probably I should learn to code a little bit.

Thanks a lot,

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Jason Lightfoot ♦♦ Aitor Oyarbide commented · Dec 04, 2023 at 03:14 PM

Alternative use a process flow and a basicFr - that's probably more transparent.

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Answer 2 · 2023-11-24T13:15:25Z

Joerg Vogel answered Nov 24, '23

I have a global table to hold a recipe.

A combiner receives only the total amount of products in the sequence a queue provides.

This queue stores a sequence of port numbers inobjects, which opens involved outputs. Whenever an item enters this queue, the involved sending object closes its output instantly.

Codes are in triggers of queue called "parts in sequence". Main code is On Message trigger. On Reset setups the process. On Entry closes involved output object again. Providing product queue closes its output on Reset event.

pack_pallet_in_sequence.fsm

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