Combiner, Last pack with remaining flowitems

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juan_esteban.sanchez asked Jul 27, '16 Ben Wilson edited Jul 27, '16

Combiner, Last pack with remaining flowitems

I have a process that uses a Combiner to pack flow items from 3 different queues, 10 flow items from each queue. At the end of the process there are some flow items remaining (less than 10 per queue).

How could I do a last pack with the remaining flow items if the quantity of those remaining items varies?

Software Version:

FlexSim 16.1.0

combiner component list

Answer 1 · 2016-07-27T21:51:49Z

Ben Wilson answered Jul 27, '16 Ben Wilson edited Jul 27, '16

Please see the attached model for an example.

On the 3 queues, if you enable batching, you can use the On End Collecting trigger, where you'll find an option for Change Combiner's batch quantity to this object's batch. This option doesn't have any user-configurable options. You just set it and go.

For your batching, set the batch quantity to 10. Flush the contents between batches. Set some timeout period after which the combiner should just take whatever is left.

This will work as long as all three queues have at least one item to donate to the final combiner pack. If one of the queues is empty for that final pack, then it has not started a batch, so it will not time out, and it will not tell the combiner to take whatever it has left (which would be nothing).

If this may ever be the case for you, we can probably get around it with some custom logic. Let us know.

2016-07-27-15-43-33-flexsim-2016.png (104.1 KiB)

2016-07-27-15-46-52-queue3-properties.png (13.0 KiB)

samplemodel.fsm (20.2 KiB)

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