question

Lucas Klein avatar image
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Lucas Klein asked Lucas Klein commented

Reevaluate sendto on downstream availability in Exit Transfers

I am building a model that uses two alternatives flows to a coveyor. One flow is sending to another conveyor that have a MTBF configurated in the model, and the other flow should be used when the first flow is not available.

When the first flow conveyor is not available it is painted red for a better visualization, otherwise it is painted green.

The first flow also has two configurations, it is half speed slower then the source conveyor and uses an item spacement of 3 meters. This causes the source stream to stop with certain frequency, and that is correct, because the second flow should be used only in case of maintenance of the first flow.

The issue is: When an item is stopped in the source conveyor because it has no space to enter in the first flow and the first flow conveyor enters in maintenance, the item remains blocked at the source conveyor. There is any way to reevaluate the sendto of this item when the first flow conveyor is down and the item remains blocked?

Follows attached the model with the issue to tests. If you change the time of the first failure (to 24 I.E.) you will see the second flow being used as expected.

conveyor-test-model.fsm

FlexSim 18.0.4
conveyorsmtbf mttrbreakdownsendto
conveyor-test-model.fsm (100.3 KiB)
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Emily Hardy avatar image Emily Hardy ♦ commented ·

@Lucas Klein, Because you're using a dog interval, when the item evaluates whether or not it can go onto the conveyor, it returns true- it's just waiting for a spot. When the conveyor goes down, the code has already evaluated that the box will go to the First Flow. I'm working on creating a way to work around this that will make the box reevaluate when the box goes down. I hope this helps you find a solution, but I'll keep working on this as well.

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Lucas Klein avatar image Lucas Klein Emily Hardy ♦ commented ·

Thank you for your collaboration @Emily Hardy this is part of a bigger process in what I am working in, this ifo it's a great perspective of the process and helps, not just me, but everyone that will come to this post.

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Emily Hardy avatar image Emily Hardy ♦ commented ·

Are you open to using Process Flow or would you rather stick with the 3D models?

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Lucas Klein avatar image Lucas Klein Emily Hardy ♦ commented ·

Yes, I am open to use Process Flow, any solutions are welcome.

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1 Answer

Joshua S avatar image
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Joshua S answered Lucas Klein commented

@Lucas Klein Sorry for the delay, hope this change to the model is what you are looking for. Added a label on your main processing conveyor named "Fixing" that was checked at your first conveyors transfer point. I also added process flow every time the main processing conveyor changed states it would move the waiting item that was blocking the flow to your maintenance route which opened the flow so the rest of the items could flow to the maintenance route.11990-conveyor-test-model-fix.fsm


11990-conveyor-test-model-fix.fsm (42.4 KiB)
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Lucas Klein avatar image Lucas Klein commented ·

Thanks for the nice model solution @Joshua S this will really improve the quality of my model.

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