Is it possible to push a slug to a list?

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Robert Hambright asked Nov 4, '16 Robert Hambright commented Nov 7, '16

Is it possible to push a slug to a list?

Hello.

In my model, I have items being processed one by one, then brought to a conveyor with multiple delays/stations, then they are brought to a second conveyor where a slug of 3 or 4 is built (depends on the dimension being processed). Once the slug is built, it is sent to a different conveyor where the slug should be taken to 1 of 4 racks (depending on what the rack requirements are).

Is it possible to have the slug pushed to a list as 1 item? Maybe all 3 items as a group? I would like to have the rack to take all of the slug items at once but I am not sure how to do this or where to push it to a list.

Thank you.

Software Version:

FlexSim 16.2.0

racks slug

· 3

Jeff Nordgren commented · Nov 04, 2016 at 05:46 PM

@Robert Hambright

Robert,

Without a model to look at it's hard to answer specifically to your situation. But one idea that comes to mind would be to create an array of the items in the slug and then push the array to the list. Would something like that work for you?

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Robert Hambright Jeff Nordgren commented · Nov 04, 2016 at 06:24 PM

Jeff,

I have included an example. In the example, I would like to have item type 1 go to rack 1, type 2 to rack 2, and type 3 to rack 3. Currently, they all go to rack 3 and they enter the rack one at a time. Is it possible to have the racks request their desired item from the conveyor and take all 4 objects at one time?

I was thinking maybe push the items to a list when they are finished on the processor. But would the racks be able to know which items are part of the slug?

I hope this makes more sense. Thanks for the help.

example-model.fsm

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example-model.fsm (21.4 KiB)

Sam Stubbs ♦ Robert Hambright commented · Nov 04, 2016 at 06:53 PM

You could put a slug ID label on them so that they could right? So that when the transporter pulls items to take to racks, it uses a slugID label to make sure all items from that slug go to the same rack.

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Answer 1 · 2016-11-04T21:41:07Z

Jeff Nordgren answered Nov 4, '16 Robert Hambright commented Nov 7, '16

@Robert Hambright

Robert,

Attached is your model with the changes that I've made. You weren't telling the flowitems which exit transfer point they should take. So I added DP1 that directs the flowitems to the proper exit transfer point based on itemtype. I also set the conveyor speed to 1 (explained below).

In DP2, if the itemtype is one, I set the conveyor speed to 100. This is because by the nature of conveyors, only one flowitem can exit the conveyor at a time. So the whole slug must exit one at a time. I speed up the conveyor to 100 so that it "appears" that the whole slug goes to the rack at the same time. This is why in DP1, I reset the conveyor speed back to 1.

In DP3 and DP4 it is the same as DP2 with the exception of which itemtype it checks for. Would this solution work for your application?

example-model-jn2.fsm

conveyorexample-jn1.gif (7.0 MiB)

example-model-jn2.fsm (23.1 KiB)

· 1

Robert Hambright commented · Nov 07, 2016 at 12:47 PM

Since the conveyors can only send one object out at a time, this will work. Thanks, Jeff.

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