topic Re: Understanding States - OffShift vs Off shift / OnBreak vs On break in FlexSim Forum

Understanding States - OffShift vs Off shift / OnBreak vs On break

stan_e_davis — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 16:22:55 GMT

[ FlexSim 21.2.4 ]

I created a custom color palette auto-filled from the default state table. That resulted in the expected 50 items that correspond to the 50 items in the default state table.

However, when running the model and observing an Operator's pie chart that uses the custom palette, the color palette expands to include these 14 additional items..

WaitingForOperator

WaitingForTransporter

ScheduledDown

TravelEmpty

TravelLoaded

OffsetTravelEmpty

NotEmpty

AllocatedIdle

OffShift

ChangeOver

OnBreak

PreProcessing

PostProcessing

End

These states already exist in the color palette but with spaces (e.g. "Off shift" vs "OffShift", "On break" vs "OnBreak"). Where are these coming from and why the difference?

Furthermore, a time table being used by the operator distinctly defines its off shift as "30 - off shift"...

but the chart updates with "OffShift" instead of "Off shift". What am I missing in trying to understand this??

Thanks - Stan

Re: Understanding States - OffShift vs Off shift / OnBreak vs On break

JordanLJohnson — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 17:33:51 GMT

Can you post a model? It will help sort out this issue.

Re: Understanding States - OffShift vs Off shift / OnBreak vs On break

stan_e_davis — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 18:02:33 GMT

I built a small model illustrating what I am seeing.

FlexSim Help - Understanding States - OffShift vs Off shift.fsm

Thanks - Stan

Re: Understanding States - OffShift vs Off shift / OnBreak vs On break

JordanLJohnson — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 18:44:51 GMT

Thanks for posting the model. Here's what's happening.

The short version: the column names in the statistics collector don't match the state names in the State Table.

The long version:

Your chart is based on a table that has one column per state. When that chart draws that table, it recognizes that it needs to choose one color per column. So the chart asks the color palette to give it a color for the column name. One of the columns is named "OnBreak", so the chart asks for a color for that value.

Unfortunately, the color palette doesn't have a color for "OnBreak", but instead, because it was filled from the state table, it has a color for "On Break". So it generates a new color, and assigns "On Break" to that color.

The solution:

The best option is to create a new chart in the dashboard. Be sure to select the pie chart from the State section of the dashboard library. This kind of chart will use the state table you made. Since you want to use the color palette you already made, be sure to uncheck the "Adjust colors based on State Table" in the chart's properties, in the Options section. Then go ahead and switch the palette in the Colors section.

Technically, you could also rename all the columns in the existing statistics collector to match the state table, which would also work, but that would be tedious.

Re: Understanding States - OffShift vs Off shift / OnBreak vs On break

stan_e_davis — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 19:37:43 GMT

Thanks for the explanation. Understood. Solution worked as described. Thanks - Stan