Send totes from one conveyor to multiple conveyors based on process finish

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Amit Kulkarni asked Oct 22, '20 Amit Kulkarni commented Oct 27, '20

Send totes from one conveyor to multiple conveyors based on process finish

CPAK_10.21.2020.fsm

@Jeff Nordgren Using this model that you helped me with as base, here is what I am trying to do:

Currently, all totes wait at the picking station and are send together to the queue "CompletedOrders". Once the operator has finished picking to a green tote, I want to send that tote first, followed by the totes where the operator has finished the picking operation. Also, I want to send a empty tote buffered on the conveyor to that station. For example, if the operator finished picking operation for green tote at station 1, the tote should be released immediately and another empty tote should be send to that location.

Currently the logic at decision point DP5 is sending empty green totes to the 4 picking stations chronologically by case using the index assigned to it during the creation process.

I can keep adding cases to the "Send Item by Case" logic at decision point DP5 to accommodate additional totes, which is easy for say 10-12 totes. What is needed to change to send totes dynamically to the station at which the operator has finished picking?

Software Version:

FlexSim 20.2.3

flexsim 20.2.3 conveyors conveyor decision point

greentoteindex.png (37.4 KiB)

change-index.png (285.0 KiB)

cpak-10212020.fsm (152.6 KiB)

Answer 1 · 2020-10-26T14:20:18Z

Jason Lightfoot answered Oct 26, '20 Amit Kulkarni commented Oct 27, '20

Attached I've changed the code to pull the DP from the list FreePickAreaDP. When each tote is finished/released, just push the DP to that list (before it leaves the restricted area). I've added the DP label to the tote to make it easier for you to push the correct DP.

cpak-10212020_jl.fsm

cpak-10212020-jl.fsm (104.7 KiB)

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Amit Kulkarni commented · Oct 26, 2020 at 08:32 PM

@jason.lightfoot Thanks for your response. Your suggestion led me to this post and I am trying to implement this logic into my existing process flow. According to this logic,each green tote arriving at DP5 pulls one decision point from DP1, DP2, DP3 and DP4 based on availability. However it seems that DP1 is always pulled and pushed on to the list of decision points. Can you help me understand why DP2, DP3, and DP4 are not being pulled even though they are available?

CPAK_10.26.2020.JL_AK.fsm

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cpak-10262020jl-ak.fsm (111.2 KiB)

Jason Lightfoot ♦ Amit Kulkarni commented · Oct 27, 2020 at 11:08 AM

You already had the DP pull mechanism in place in the model I posted - I thought you just needed to push back the DP when you're finished with a tote rather than push all 4 at once which the current "Send Totes" activity does.

As for why you only have one token - there's a mistake in the "Create Decision Point Tokens" activity where the quantity field name has 4 but the it should be the cell below that you enter 4:

It should look like this:

Then in the Make DP Available push activity you're pushing the token, but I would to push token.DP_Ref, and remove the coordination of the two tokens, since you only need the initial push once. After that every tote should pull and then push to the DP list.

Attached is your model with those fixes.

cpak-10262020jl2-ak.fsm

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createdecisonpointactivityerror.png (12.6 KiB)

createdecisonpointactivitycorrected.png (11.4 KiB)

cpak-10262020jl2-ak.fsm (111.2 KiB)

Amit Kulkarni Jason Lightfoot ♦ commented · Oct 27, 2020 at 12:48 PM

@jason.lightfoot Thanks for your help and the explanation!

Best regards,

Amit

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