Process multiple items in one process or multiple processors

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Tiffany Pecson asked Aug 30, '17 tannerp rolled back Jul 2, '18

Process multiple items in one process or multiple processors

I have a machine that does 4 operations. Operator stands at the front of machine and loads/unloads material. Then the robot inside rotates the part to process a 40 second operation (the longest operation which controls the drumbeat), then it rotates the part to the back for a 30 second process (although it cant move because the 40 second operation needs to complete). At the third rotation, the part rotates but not worked on so it sits idle. When it returns to the front, the operator unloads the part, which takes about 13 seconds and puts it on the conveyor to move to the next machine.

Therefore, there are about 3-4 parts in the machine at all times.

What would be the best way to model multiple operations in one machine? I attempted to start with 4 processors with the same amount of process time (40 seconds), but the challenge comes when the part has completed the 4th operation and needs to be unloaded. Would it be easier to use a type of process flow for this instead?

Software Version:

FlexSim 17.1.2

multiple operations multiple items multiple parts

Answer 1 · 2017-08-31T09:19:12Z

Joerg Vogel answered Aug 31, '17 tannerp rolled back Jul 2, '18

The approach looks good. In the drumbeat when the processor unloads and then load again you can use on the processor the pull mechanism in conjunction with pulling in round robin fashion. The first connection into the processor comes from the object which stores the items to load. You use the round robin method for the releasing of items in this processor, too. The first output connection goes into the next processor of the machine. The second goes to object which gets the unloaded items. The process time of this processor occurs twice in a cycle or drumbeat. A time after loading and process time before unloading. You can set different process times depending on the input port of this processor. Probably the time before unloading should be near zero.

ProcessFlow is good for creating an own logic of a process. The effort is nearly the same wether you create the logic of your machine in 3D or ProcessFlow. Because you want to see how the robot moves the items you have to build places where the objects stay while a process cycle. If you build the logic in which order the robot moves the items ProcessFlow might be more suitable for this task. In each cycle of the machine you get a different amount of tasksequences to transport items. It is important that the robot moves the right item out of the machine before the items inside go to the next processor.

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Tiffany Pecson commented · Sep 01, 2017 at 09:29 PM

I'm not exactly sure of all the things you mentioned as I'm still new to standard FlexSim. Could you perhaps create an example model to show what you mean?

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Process multiple items in one process or multiple processors

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