How to change the efficiency according to the number of workers?

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Pengzheng Z asked Mar 30, '21 Pengzheng Z commented Mar 30, '21

How to change the efficiency according to the number of workers?

Hello Community!

I am simulating a situation where a worker will join another station when he/she finishes the task at hand and will go back to his/her station when a new task comes. So for a specific station, there will be two different processing times, e.g. 30s when there's only one worker, 15s when the vacant worker joins. I wonder if it is possible to do adjustments like that in FlexSim or FlexSim will adjust the processing time automatically to reflect the change in the number of workers?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Software Version:

FlexSim 21.0.2

flexsim 21.0.2 operator efficiency scheduled simulation

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Joerg Vogel commented · Mar 30, 2021 at 05:06 AM

FlexSim won’t cut the processing time automatically by number of joining operators. This is a logic built upon Process Flow, where you move an item into a processor and release the item by your process flow logic. I suggest you use an object that gets available by adding process flow processor pane to your model in the Object Library. That is not a simple task because your have to handle input and output, process time, arrival of operators and naturally the statistical issues of the processor in your logic.

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Answer 1 · 2021-03-30T09:45:54Z

Jason Lightfoot answered Mar 30, '21 Pengzheng Z commented Mar 30, '21

In the attached model (originally FlexSim 5.5) the conveyor fed processor has this table as a label, defining the time the operation would take with a constant number of operators:

You can see the optimal efficiency is with 2 operators, taking 36 operator-time units.

The operators in the model are preempted by other tasks so that the number used is changing throughout the processing time. When there is a change the model displays the time worked as the 'optimal equivalent' - so in the example that references the 36 units required with 2 people.

It's been a while since it was put together (10 years) - so if you find gremlins, let us know here.

20.1_OperatorDependentProcessTime4_cleartasks.fsm

1617096997462.png (2.3 KiB)

1617097261555.png (148.1 KiB)

201-operatordependentprocesstime4-cleartasks.fsm (61.9 KiB)

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Pengzheng Z commented · Mar 30, 2021 at 03:53 PM

Thanks, I will try it out!

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Answer 2 · 2021-03-30T14:18:52Z

Steven Hamoen answered Mar 30, '21 Pengzheng Z commented Mar 30, '21

@Pengzheng Z Here is a solution with Process Flow. Only condition is that only at the start of a new job, operators decide what they do.

OperatorEfficiency.fsm

operatorefficiency.fsm (45.5 KiB)

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Pengzheng Z commented · Mar 30, 2021 at 04:00 PM

Thanks!

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