Source inter arrivaltime by time of day ramps up by 1000x the amount set

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doug palmer asked Nov 13, '19 Phil BoBo edited Nov 14, '19

Source inter arrivaltime by time of day ramps up by 1000x the amount set

arrival-time-by-time-of-day.fsmI wanted to have a source deliver 1 piece per hour starting at 8am until 6pm then stop. using inter arrival time by time of day I plug in 1 for each hour then zero after 6pm. When I run the model it spits out 1035 in 2 hours and then stops. see attached.

I used 1 piece per hour to make it simple I have actually have different amounts for each hour. I still had the problem occur with the varing amounts.

Software Version:

FlexSim 19.0.2

by time of day arrival time arrivaltime

arrival-time-by-time-of-day.fsm (148.4 KiB)

Answer 1 · 2019-11-14T17:44:11Z

Phil BoBo answered Nov 14, '19 Phil BoBo edited Nov 14, '19

The "By Time of Day" option in the Inter-Arrivaltime trigger returns the inter-arrival times of flowitems generated during those hours, not the quantity of flowitems during those hours.

In your configuration, from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, items will arrive every 1 second. From 6 PM to 8 AM, items will arrive every 0 seconds (one will be created immediately after one leaves).

You are trying to use a quantity of items per time period, not the interarrival time of items per time period. Use the Date Time Source as Tanner suggested, or change your Source from arrival style "Inter-Arrival Time" to "Arrival Schedule."

Answer 2 · 2019-11-13T22:26:29Z

tannerp answered Nov 13, '19 tannerp edited Nov 13, '19

Hi @doug palmer,

For whatever reason, the "By Time of Day" doesn't do what it intuitively seems like it would. Maybe @phil.bobo or @jordan.johnson could shed light on this.

Based on what you're describing, I think you'll have better luck using a Date-Time Source in Process Flow. You can set up the table in a similar way to what you had (I used the Generate table feature at the top left) and then add in the quantities you need. Then I just substituted a queue for the source and used an activity to create objects with Process Flow. To double check the logic, there's a piece called "Print Hour of Day" that you don't need, but it shows in the output console that the boxes come every hour as designated in the Date-Time Source.

Hope this helps!

by-time-of-day.fsm

date-time-source.png (30.9 KiB)

by-time-of-day.fsm (41.0 KiB)

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