Choosing from group of operators for coordinated load/unload

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charles-l asked Jan 12, '24 Felix Möhlmann commented Jan 16, '24

Choosing from group of operators for coordinated load/unload

Imagine there is an Enter Queue, two Processors, and an Exit Queue. There are three operators in the work crew. When 10 flow items enter the Enter Queue, all three operators are required to transport the batch to an available processor. The processor processes all 10. Operators are not needed for the processing time. Next, two operators from the crew are required to unload and transport the batch of 10 to the Exit Queue.

I know I need to use a Coordinated Task Sequence in Process Flow to model this behavior. However, I'm stuck on how to tell Flexsim to choose any 2 of the 3 operators in the crew for the task sequence. The tutorial example hard codes what operators are needed for the Travel activities. Any 2 of the 3 crew members should Travel to the Processors, Load, Travel to the Exit Queue, and Unload. This is the tutorial I am referencing, note how the tutorial explicitly defines what operator is used in the activities (The main op and the assistant op). https://docs.flexsim.com/en/22.2/Tutorials/TaskLogic/Tutorial2CoordinatedTasks/CoordinatedTasksOverview/CoordinatedTasksOverview.html

In my application, all operators are eligible for the same process flow. How do i model this?

Software Version:

FlexSim 24.0.0

coordinated task sequence

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Answer 1 · 2024-01-12T07:00:38Z

Felix Möhlmann answered Jan 12, '24 Felix Möhlmann commented Jan 16, '24

Add the operators to the Process Flow as a resource and acquire two of them. See the tutorial linked below.

https://docs.flexsim.com/en/24.0/Tutorials/ProcessFlow/Tutorial1UsingSharedAssets/UsingSharedAssetsOverview/UsingSharedAssetsOverview.html

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charles-l commented · Jan 15 at 06:57 PM

Felix, I attempted to follow the tutorial and I'm stuck on how to get the model to use the correct amount of operators for transport. The Acquire resource should define this behavior, but it is not working the way I thought it would. I have attached my model with a Process Flow included. Any help is greatly appreciated.ChamberModel.fsm

It appears that only the first index of the array of 3 operators is being acquired

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chambermodel.fsm (329.8 KiB)

Felix Möhlmann charles-l commented · Jan 16 at 07:43 AM

The token does acquire three operators. Since you linked to the coordinated tasks tutorial I thought you were aware that you have to give each operator their own task sequence.

Just instead of acquiring a specific operator for each task sequence you first acquire two/three and then refer to them through the array index (token.operator[i]).

Or, possibly faster, build a subflow and pass the information about which operator should receive the task sequence to the child token.

chambermodel_1.fsm

Important: In your model the token was only releasing one of the acquired operator. The Release activity has to be set to "Release All".

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chambermodel-1.fsm (63.9 KiB)

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