Modeling a "slapper line" conveyor

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Craig DIckson asked Aug 19, '20 Craig DIckson commented Sep 2, '20

Modeling a "slapper line" conveyor

Is there a good way to model placing cartons or totes at an ad hoc location along a (long) conveyor, presumably using process flow?

Currently I create a number of queues along the conveyor and then A-connect them to the conveyor to create a series of entry transfers. Then my process flow moves the carton into the nearest entry transfer when the picker is done. But since there are a limited number of transfers, sometimes the carton enters the conveyor behind the operator and sometimes downstream. I'd rather be able to have my process flow just place the carton on the conveyor at a specific location.

Barring that, is it possible to create entry transfers without going through the extra step of creating, connecting and hiding a bunch of superfluous queues?

Thanks for your help

Craig

Software Version:

FlexSim 20.1.3

conveyor flexsim 20.1.3 entry transfer

Answer 1 · 2020-08-21T20:48:23Z

Jordan Johnson answered Aug 21, '20 Craig DIckson commented Sep 2, '20

First, you can make a really long entry transfer:

To make it, you can A-connect something to the conveyor. On the resulting transfer, you can right click it, and choose to remove the connections. That leaves a transfer with no connections.

Then, you can move the transfer to the side, and use the red arrows on it to stretch it out. Once you've done that, then you can set the location of a box to near where you want it to go, and move it into the transfer. The attached model does that:

SlapperDemo.fsm

1598042670575.png (118.7 KiB)

slapperdemo.fsm (41.5 KiB)

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Craig DIckson commented · Aug 22, 2020 at 01:33 PM

Perfect. Thanks!

PS - Is there someplace in the documentation where this should be included?

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Craig DIckson commented · Aug 22, 2020 at 02:39 PM

@jordan.johnson After trying it in my model, I noticed that not all of the tokens get past the "wait for event" activity. I checked and it looks like the same happens in your model.

You can see the extras in the picture: there are only 3 actually on the conveyor; the Sink Activity in the Process Flow has only had 8 tokens in Input.

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1598106935489.png (240.7 KiB)

Jordan Johnson ♦♦ Craig DIckson commented · Aug 24, 2020 at 02:56 PM

I think the OnEntry of the conveyor fires during the Move Object activity; moving the object immediately allows it to enter the conveyor. You can split the token. The original token, going out connector one, begins listening before the second token (going out connector 2) moves the item. This seems to resolve that issue.

SlapperDemo2.fsm

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slapperdemo2.fsm (42.3 KiB)

Craig DIckson Jordan Johnson ♦♦ commented · Sep 02, 2020 at 10:07 PM

That did work, though in my model I had to play around with where to put a delay-zero activity (what you typically call "Breathe")

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