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Mayuresh J avatar image
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Mayuresh J asked gilbert jerald commented

Pallet Storage and box picking

Hello!

In this model I am palletizing four different types of cartons and placing them in a rack. Two operators palletize the cartons and one operator with hand pallet trolley puts the palletized cartons into rack.

1. I want to pick up individual or multiple individual cartons from the palletized racks. For picking I will use a schedule that will specify time, type and quantity of the cartons to be picked. How to perform this operation?

2. I also want to store the leftover cartons on combiner to a separate rack.

Please help me with above problems.

Thank You.

carton-picking.fsm

FlexSim 17.1.4
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order pickingpalletscartons
carton-picking.fsm (194.4 KiB)
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2 Answers

gilbert jerald avatar image
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gilbert jerald answered gilbert jerald commented

@ Mayuresh J,

Hi,

I have attached a sample model for your second question "After palletizing all the possible boxes some boxes are still left on combiner"

To overcome this issue I have handled this problem using Process Flow. The boxes that enter to Queue1 will be Pushed to a list "ItemList1" and in the list, the boxes are stored as partitation ID based on item type. Now in the Process Flow, the required quantity of box will be pulled from the list based on the combiner combine quantity.

The bellow is the key code to overcome your issue. The bellow code will keep on tracking current content of each item type with respective Partition ID in List. once the current content of that particular item type is lower than the combined quantity this code will make the combine to combine whatever the remaining quantity and release the pallet.

I have attached a sample model for your reference.have a look on it and iam trying to solve your first question. I will post an answer to your first question if I get any solution.

combiner-sample-model.fsm

Thank you.


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gilbert jerald avatar image gilbert jerald commented ·

Hi

I have attached the answer to your first question "Is it possible to retrieve separate boxes from the pallet, stored in pallet storage rack, with respect to item type, Quantity and time"

I have used process flow to achieve this logic. Order Tokens will be created from the source at the particular time(400,500,550,650sec) with respective to item types. And quantity (Type1=2, Type2=5, Type3=6, Type4= 8) for each item type is mention in the global table.According to that, the Task executor will pick the correct quantity of boxes from the pallet "stored in pallet storage rack" and unload it to the respective destination.

The below picture code is the key code that will instruct the Task Executor to load the correct quantity of boxes from each pallet. I have written this code in "Run sub flow1".

Note: I have written some comments on each custom code. Have a look at it, this will explain why this code is been written to manage the flow.

I have attached the model have a look on it.

combiner-task-executor-sample-model.fsm

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combiner-task-executor-sample-model.fsm (209.4 KiB)
task-executor-code.jpg (148.1 KiB)
Mayuresh J avatar image Mayuresh J gilbert jerald commented ·

@gilbert jerald

Thank you very much.

The solution provided fits well in the situation described above, but I am not able to customize the model.

Some modifications that I intended to implement are

Each rack should contain a single item type.

Simultaneous case picking and pallet picking, the rack I created in such a way that the ground bay should only be used for retrieving cases/cartons and rest of the rack to be used for pallet picking.

racks.png

Model works fine with single rack but not when having multiple racks each storing a single item type.

Please help me with these.

Thank You.

pallet-plus-carton-picking.fsm



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pallet-plus-carton-picking.fsm (52.9 KiB)
racks.png (165.6 KiB)
Jeff Nordgren avatar image Jeff Nordgren Mayuresh J commented ·
@Mayuresh J

Did you get a solution to your problem?

Thanks.

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Jeff Nordgren answered Mayuresh J edited

@Mayuresh J,

Attached is your model with the changes that I've made. I changed the PF modules a little bit to make the transport of the HPT and pallet a little better. I also added code in the OnModelReset to check to see if the HPT is still in the Operator. If it is, I move it back into the model.

I also changed some of the information that gets sent to the ItemList. It now contains the ItemType of the pallet which is what itemtypes the pallet contains. I also include the palletQty for the number of flowitems on a pallet, if they are different.

So when you go to pull from the ItemList for your scheduled orders, you should now have the information you need to do that.

carton-picking-jn1.fsm


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Mayuresh J avatar image Mayuresh J commented ·

Thank You @Jeff Nordgren

The model is now organized and runs more smoothly.

I am still not able to retrieve separate boxes from the palletized which are stored in pallet storage rack. Is it possible to create a schedule that allows user to give input about how many boxes or pallets to retrieve? Of particular type and at a particular time.


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Jeff Nordgren avatar image Jeff Nordgren Mayuresh J commented ·

@Mayuresh J

I'm not clear on how you want to go about getting items from the pallets in the rack. I'm thinking that you would retrieve a pallet from the rack of the proper type and send it to a separator. In the separator, you could then separate the boxes from from the pallet and maybe use a combiner to combine the boxes into the proper order qty. Not sure what you are referring to when you refer time to an order.

Maybe you could send your current model and explain in more detail what needs to happen. Or a sample model if you can't, for some reason, send your model.

Thanks.

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Mayuresh J avatar image Mayuresh J Jeff Nordgren commented ·

@Jeff Nordgren

1. The model is the same which you updated. In that model is it possible to retrieve separate boxes from the pallet, stored in pallet storage rack, as per a schedule from global table?

The schedule will have time, type, and quantity of boxes to be retrieved, similar to the following.

Separator will be considered in case of retrieving full pallet load. But what to do if I have to retrieve only a few boxes from the complete pallet?

Is it possible without a separator?


2. After palletizing all the possible boxes some boxes are still left on combiner, and as the combiner don't have the minimum number of boxes to complete the palletizing process these are left on the combiner.

Is there any way to pick those boxes and put somewhere?

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