Shoe Manufacturing Facility Simulation

[rilenemitchell08]

[ FlexSim 2023 ]

Hello! I’m currently trying to simulate a Shoe Manufacturing Facility for a project, and certain logics have led me confused and unable to gain insights from the simulation for weeks.

With this, here are my questions, and some notes:

1. The machines seen per station (the one divided by rectangles with labels) actually represent the processes happening per station. Since the project will investigate the efficiency of the layout, I want the operators to only move when they actually go from their main station to another, or to a distant machine. I do not want them to go to each of the machines in their station, since these machines, as I’ve said, only represent the processes happening in that station.
1. With this, how do I model this scenario? Take note that the machines (representation of processes) should only work in the presence of the operator in the station. These processes are sequential too, and one instance should be processed before proceeding to the next processes. No succeeding instances should be processed until the first one processed is finished until the end of the station. They should wait first inside their respective queue.
2. How do I also model it if for example, Worker 1 has to do the upper part of the shoe first, then proceed in her respective sewing machine to sew other parts of the shoe (from her own and from other workers as well), and when the queue of these need-to-be-sewn-shoe-parts get reduced at a certain point or emptied out, she’ll proceed in making the upper part again?
3. What’s happening in my current simulation is the operators are not moving at all and the products are moving only through the a-connection of the elements. The products move simultaneously too, with no sequencing whatsoever.
4. Also, how do I make the barriers and boundaries effective? I honestly don’t know how to make them work even after trying the ones I watched on youtube.

If you could also suggest some improvements, I’d be more than glad to try it out.

I’d also like to say that I’m a beginner user of the software, and I’m still trying to understand its advanced features. Hopefully someone could help since this would be a big part of my group and I’s grade for the subject. :”)

Thank you very, very much in advance!