How to create a stationary flowitem system

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Ruben Mariduena asked Mar 20, '18 Steven Hamoen edited Mar 20, '18

How to create a stationary flowitem system

Typical 3D models involve the movement of flowitems through a system which transfers them from one activity to the next one. The model that I'm trying to create is one where the flowitem is brought to a location, stays there until all the work (which involves multiple activities) is complete and then is transferred out of the system.

A good example of this would be the manufacturing of airplanes. Airplanes are built in one stationary location where all resources "come" to the plane for each activity in the order they are needed. How can use Flexsim to achieve this? If I use fixed resources to represent each activity (where each includes different processing times, breaks and resources) the flowitem would move through them in the 3D model and that is not what happens in this process.

Thank you,

Ruben

Software Version:

FlexSim 18.0.3

flowitems stationary

Answer 1 · 2018-03-20T15:45:08Z

Matthew Gillespie answered Mar 20, '18 Steven Hamoen edited Mar 20, '18

This is the kind of model that you should definitely use Process Flow for. You would bring your airplane in to the repair area, then in Process Flow you map out the tasks that need to happen. You can use resources to control who controls the operators by making the tasks acquire and release the operators. Once the task has the operators it needs you tell them to travel to the airplane and spend time there.

This is the way we build healthcare models. For example, in this sample model of a clinic patients are taken to an exam room and spend most of their time there. While they stay in the room, nurses and doctors come check on them, do evaluations and tests, and temporarily take them to the x-ray machine before bringing them right back to their original bed.

clinic.fsm (291.3 KiB)

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Ruben Mariduena commented · Mar 20, 2018 at 04:06 PM

Matt,

Thank you for answering, yes process flow is definitely the way to go. The problem that I'm having is applying breaks or downtimes to the activities to represent resources having lunch breaks or going home. For example, some of the activities take a couple of hours and if the clock hits 5 pm the activity will continue the next day. To represent the actual activity we use a "Delay" activity but I cannot include the break/downtime to it.

To continue with the example, lets say the activity takes 5 hours and it's already 4pm. What should happen is that the resource works for an hour, is down until 7am the next day and then it resumes the work for the remaining 4 hours. In the mode that you provided the resource will work until 9pm to complete the activity and then be down.

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Steven Hamoen Ruben Mariduena commented · Mar 20, 2018 at 04:17 PM

@Ruben Mariduena Please check out the preemption activities. You can have a separate process that triggers at 5 pm then preempt the working and returns it at 7 pm.

If you have repetitive tasks you can also let the operator check everytime it is finished with a task, if the break had started in which case it is send to a delay for the remaining time. We have used that for instance with picking in a warehouse. The operator finishes the picking and when the picking is ready it checks if it is time to go on a break. This resembles reality because in reality they also finish their task first.

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