Continuous pick in conveyor fails with processors

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Jeffry S Pribadi asked Jun 14, '19 Joseph Gillespie commented Jul 8, '19

Continuous pick in conveyor fails with processors

Hi Guys,

I have similar problem with https://answers.flexsim.com/questions/39600/continuous-pick-in-conveyor-fails-with-processors.html

The solution offered in that question didn't solve my problem.

because I'd like to keep my processor content with 1, not change to 100,

and also the operator is also used by the Processors.

My Model results is the first operator only pick the box once, second operator never pick up, and the third operator always pick the box.

Do you have any suggestion how to make all the operators can pick the box from conveyor and process it in the Processor?multi-processor-in-conveyor.fsm

Software Version:

FlexSim 16.0.9

conveyors

multi-processor-in-conveyor.fsm (32.4 KiB)

5 |100000

Attachments: Up to 12 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 23.8 MiB each and 47.7 MiB total.

Answer 1 · 2019-06-18T21:04:22Z

Joseph Gillespie answered Jun 18, '19 Joseph Gillespie commented Jul 8, '19

@Jeffry S Pribadi

This may not be the exact solution you were looking for, but one way to do this would be to connect the first Decision Point to all three Exit Transfer Points, then set an "On Arrival" trigger on the Decision Point that sends the items to a random output port:

That way, the items will be evenly sent to the three Exit Transfer Points and all of the operators are used evenly.

Here's your model with this solution: multiprocessoranswer.fsm

capture20.png (20.6 KiB)

multiprocessoranswer.fsm (31.5 KiB)

· 2

5 |100000

Attachments: Up to 12 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 23.8 MiB each and 47.7 MiB total.

Jeffry S Pribadi commented · Jul 01, 2019 at 04:12 AM

Hi @Joseph Gillespie,

Thank you for your answer.
In your suggested model, there is new problem, the container become stuck in the middle of the conveyor, and causing the last operator become idle.

Please share if you have another suggestion to solve this.

0 ·

container-stuck.jpg (100.8 KiB)

Joseph Gillespie Jeffry S Pribadi commented · Jul 01, 2019 at 10:29 PM

@Jeffry S Pribadi

It's difficult to smoothly simulate multiple operators pulling items off of a moving conveyor because of the event-driven nature of FlexSim. To fix the problem of items becoming stuck at different parts of the conveyor, you'll have to use a totally different solution than the one I posted earlier.

Here's a solution I was able to figure out using Process Flow: multiprocessoranswer2.fsm

It has four basic parts:

1. A block of activities that push incoming items to a list, called "ItemList"

2. Activities that control Operator1 (starting with Source: Operator1). Here, Operator1 waits for items to cross Photo Eye 1 and then carry them back to his processor. I had to add more than this, however, since items can't cross the Photo Eye anymore when the conveyor is full. I also added a check to see if the Photo Eye is blocked after 0.1 time units of waiting for an item to arrive, and if the Photo Eye is blocked, the operator pulls the closest item to him from the list and carries it back to his processor.

3. Activities that control Operator2. (Similar to the ones that control Operator1).

4. A block of activities that control Operator3. Since Operator3 is at the end of the conveyor, he simply pulls the oldest item from the list and places it on the conveyor.

There's a lot of specifics I didn't explain, so if you have any specific questions on how this works, let me know!

0 ·

multiprocessoranswer2.fsm (44.9 KiB)

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