Material refill by operator via Process Flow

[Felix_Hagemeister]

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on a model where several operators, managed by a dispatcher, load boxes from a pallet in a rack into totes. These boxes represent material that is later consumed by processors. Each processor pulls material from its own queue, which serves as a buffer.

My goal is to have the operators move the tote, after it has been loaded, to the buffer queues of the processors. For this, I am using a process flow, which works to some extent.

At the moment, I determine the travel destination after loading the tote with the function “Lowest Content in Group”. However, this sometimes causes multiple operators to head for the same queue because they don’t yet “see” that another operator is already on the way there. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big issue, but since I’ve set the maximum content of each queue to 1, I get an error if another operator tries to unload the tote into a full queue.

To solve this, I believe the best approach would be to use a label that reserves the queue once an operator has chosen it as its destination.

Here is my current process flow:

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to best implement this reservation logic?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Felix

[Paula_LG · Accepted solution]

Hi Felix,

To acomplish that, you could create another resource referring to the buffers group and construct the query so that it only acquires queues that are not full, ordered by their content. That way, you achieve the reservation logic you mentioned and you ensure that you will have the same object for the travel and unload destinations, which isn't guaranteed with your current logic.

I hope it helps!

[Felix_Hagemeister]

Hi Paula,

yes, thanks. I've just implemented a couple changes and the second resource for the queues. Works well now, thanks 🙂