Allow multiple operators to process & transport flow items?

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Jake W asked Oct 16, '19 pc neo commented Dec 6, '19

Allow multiple operators to process & transport flow items?

cut-process-j.fsm I am trying to figure out how to make operators 1, 2, and 3 all be able to transport the batch in Combiner1 to the bake and same for the bake to Separator1 and Separator1 to Cut. I also want the operator who transported the flow items to stay at the station for processing. Currently, the only operator transporting and processing is the one who is the 1st center port connection to the fixed resource. Would it be possible to select the operator that is idle? Or I also thought maybe pulling the operator closest to the fixed resource in case none of the operators are ever idle.

operator assignment

cut-process-j.fsm (48.6 KiB)

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Answer 1 · 2019-10-29T06:40:25Z

pc neo answered Oct 29, '19 pc neo commented Dec 6, '19

23074-cut-process-j-1-autosave.fsm @Jake W I've tried to modify your program as follows:

a) Use process flow to send request out to dispatcher whenever there is a pallet of boxes completed processing. The process flow will repeatedly send out request to the same operator to ask to transport the boxes to machine Cut after knowing which operator is being sent to to transport the first box.

b) The operator when it first come over to machine "Processor1" (I've replace the Separator with this machine upon OnLoad of box onto the Operator, it will send a message to Processor1 and in turn Processor1 remember the operator name (as a label "operator"). The same information is written into machine Cut.

c) Machine Cut is setup to call the same operator as recorded in machine "Processor1".

This seems to work well please review.

P.S. On second thought perhaps it is not necessary to change the Separator with Processor, both should work fine.

23074-cut-process-j-1-autosave.fsm (60.5 KiB)

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Jake W commented · Nov 04, 2019 at 03:48 PM

@pc neo Do I need to have both process flows if I continue to use the separator? Because I tried to reconnect the separator and it is not working.

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pc neo Jake W commented · Nov 05, 2019 at 05:17 AM

@Jack W after trying out reconnecting the Separator, I think my suggestion will only work if the Separator is replaced with a Processor. I believe it is related to the working of the separator. As it expects to have 6 flowitems leaving by output port 2 and 1 flowitem (pallet) leaving by output port 1, that internal mechanism continue to operate in parallel with process flow which together it created the strange behaviour as seen here.

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Jake W commented · Nov 05, 2019 at 04:42 PM

@pc neo Why does the process flow stop working when the operators are partially assigned to their own bench and partially assigned to Dispatcher1?

The only thing I changed to test was making the operators the central port connection for the 3 benches, but keeping Dispatcher1 as the central port for Bake, Processor1, and Cut.

23160-23074-cut-process-1-autosave-edit.fsm

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23160-23074-cut-process-1-autosave-edit.fsm (62.5 KiB)

pc neo Jake W commented · Dec 06, 2019 at 07:19 AM

@Jake W I noted that a mistake that I made in the model that result in the behaviour you see. Refer to the pic attached,

a) the yellow highlight is the name changed, this will get the same operator to transport all the boxes on the pallet.

b) Also, I've moved the createTS activity to happened within the loop. I noted that createTS will create a empty tasksequence to the task executer even when dispatchTS activity has not happened. This is not desirable.

Hope this helps.

annotation-2019-12-06-151942.jpg

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23327-23160-23074-cut-process-1-autosave-edit-upd.fsm (62.6 KiB)

annotation-2019-12-06-151942.jpg (59.1 KiB)

Answer 2 · 2019-10-17T13:54:26Z

Joerg Vogel answered Oct 17, '19 api commented Nov 8, '19

Choose operator by query of state value . The answer belongs to the question "is there a way to limit a resource (operator) usage?" You would probably have to accumulate some more states to use the approach. Or you can order the operators attributes descendingly with other states.

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Jake W commented · Oct 23, 2019 at 05:22 PM

I am trying to use a dispatcher as the solution, but the simulation is not respecting the priorities set on combiner1 and Bake processes. How can I fix this?

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Braydn T Jake W commented · Oct 24, 2019 at 02:14 PM

@Jake W

Can you upload your model so we can see what is going on? Thanks!

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Jake W commented · Oct 24, 2019 at 03:33 PM

cut-process-j.fsm

@Braydn T Here is the model.

It is currently having operators only do 1 box at a time on the cut station when they should be doing all 6 boxes before returning. They are also finishing processing a box on their respective bench when they should be stopping to transport product to the bake process.

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cut-process-j.fsm (49.2 KiB)

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