Can a flowitem contain another flowitem?

[shawn_d]

[ FlexSim 17.1.2 ]

I have a source with the flowitem as a truck. when the flowitem gets to the processor how can i unload what the flowitem is containing? i hope i'm asking this correct.

[Ben_WilsonADSK · Accepted solution]

@Shawn D,

Yes, flowitems can contain other flowitems.

The Combiner and the Separator objects facilitate packing and unpacking/splitting of items.

In your case, if your Source is producing a truck, it likely does not have any other flowitem packed into it. This means you have two options:

1. First run the truck through a Combiner and pack additional items onto the truck for later unpacking at a Separator
2. Use the Separator's split functionality to dynamically generate flowitems from a single truck flowitem. In this case you would need to have some trigger logic to change 3D shapes, since by default a split flowitem will be a copy of the original flowitem, and I don't suppose you want 1 truck coming in and 80 trucks leaving, but rather 80 boxes/pallets/totes/what-have-you.

Check the user manual sections for Combiners and Separators by opening the User Manual (In FlexSim, Main Menu > Help > User Manual) and going to the index. Then scan for Combiner and Separator entries. Once you've familiarized yourself with these objects, play around with them a bit and come back to Answers with any questions you may have (start a new question specific to whatever help you need).

[Ben_WilsonADSK]

@Shawn D,

Attached is a simple example demonstrating the first option, of packing first, then unpacking your truck.

loadthenunload.fsm

In this example, 20 boxes are stacked inside the truck before it moves onto the conveyor. If you move the view camera around so that you can see inside the truck, you'll see the boxes stacking in there:

I looked into making a sample of option 2 as well, but if you're using FlexSim's default truck object, it's just not a good idea. The truck flowitem is actually a task executor flowitem, and therefore includes a lot of extra functionality that you don't really need/want to have on your boxes.

A better option would be to either do the method demonstrated in this sample (and you could decrease process and inter-arrival times such that loaded trucks are created immediately upon their exiting the source, or at any other time), or generate flowitems later on in the model when they're really needed (for instance, a queue has an OnMessage trigger option to create flowitems - or use Process Flow to control item creation).

[shawn_d]

Thank you @Ben Wilson