Items longer than 30 minutes in queue, brought back to other queue

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Dominik K asked May 5, '20 tannerp commented May 15, '20

Items longer than 30 minutes in queue, brought back to other queue

Hi!

If an item is waiting in a queue after / inbetween processes for longer than 30 minutes, I want an operator who is idle to bring it back to the main-storage-queue I implemented. How can I do so?
Tutorials that would teach me this, would be very much appreciated if you know one! Also, answers in german are very well welcomed.

Thanks in advance!

Software Version:

FlexSim 18.2.3

queue flexsim 18.2.3 item queue waiting waiting time

Answer 1 · 2020-05-05T19:44:26Z

tannerp answered May 5, '20 tannerp commented May 15, '20

I've forgotten much of the German I learned in school, so I best answer in English if that's okay. I'd love to re-learn German at some point, though!

Here's an idea of what you can do with lists. When items are pushed to a list, they are given an "age" that represents the time that they've been on the list (or in a queue). You can have a token looking to pull items that have an age greater than a given amount of time using a Pull from List query. I've attached a sample model that does this. In the model, the operator pulls any boxes that wait longer than 30 seconds in Queue2 and places them in the "Expired" queue.

Let me know if you have any questions. If you have a model you're working with, you can attach that and we can help provide a specific answer.

Dominik help 1.fsm

age-out-queue.png (17.0 KiB)

dominik-help-1.fsm (31.1 KiB)

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Dominik K commented · May 15, 2020 at 02:03 PM

Thank you very much!

This helped a lot already. The situation is the following:
The Queue next to a machine would be equipped with such a list. So, if an Item is laying next to a machine longer than 30 minutes, it would have to be brought to the right Closet-Queue - not just a random one. How could I tell the operator, in which closet-queue he has to put it, after the item has been laying around for longer than 30 minutes next to the machine?

Regards!

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tannerp Dominik K commented · May 15, 2020 at 04:37 PM

Sure. If you know which queue is closest, you can assign that in a label. If you're unsure which queue is closest, you could pull the queues from a list based on a distance criteria. It will depend on the model that you're working with. Would you be able to upload the model or an example that represents what you're trying to do? That way, we can provide the best option according to your simulation.

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