Equipment: Handler Group
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Description
The Handler Group component is used to simulate a group of people moving products from one location to another. They are invisible, and the products they move are also invisible while they are moved.
Handlers can pick products from a number of From conveyors, and drop them on a number of To conveyor. If no To conveyor is configured, handlers will remove the product from the simulation. To list can also have the equipments handled by other logical processor
Handling Time: The time in seconds for each handler to handle each product is specified with a minimum, maximum and a mean handling time. Each time a product is handled, the simulation determines the handling time as below:
- Generate 2 numbers between - 1 and 1 (d1 and d2)
- Calculate the deviation = (d1 + d2) / 2
- Calculated handling time = (max - mean) * deviate + mean (if deviate is positive) or (mean - min) * deviate + mean (if deviate is negative)
If the handling time is set at 10 seconds and there are 2 handlers in the location then, on average, a product will be moved every 5 seconds. e.g. the times are for each handler not the group.
Rule: it is possible to assign a rule to a handler group. In this case, only products that match the rule will be processed by the group.
Picking Products: When a handler is free, they look at all products in the From conveyors and process the oldest product (ie the one that arrived on the conveyor first). If the handlers are busy, they don’t handle the product.
Dropping Products: When handlers place products on a To conveyor, they just drop the product regardless of existing products. This may result in products piling on top of each other. A functionality to insert products in gaps between existing products will be added in the future. If multiple To conveyors are configured, handlers place the products on each conveyor in round-robin (1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1 etc.).
Creation
From the Toolbox, simply drag and drop a Handler Group into the simulation.
Or, right click on a conveyor, select Create Handler Group. The created group will include the selected conveyor as a From conveyor.
Access
Only from the Project Explorer > Equipments > Handler Group.
Properties
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | The name of the Handler Group. |
| Move From | List of From conveyors where the handlers pick the products. |
| Move To | List of To conveyors where the handlers drop the products. Move To list can also have the equipments handled by other logical processor. |
| Number of Handlers | Number of handlers working in the group. |
| Enabled | If false, handlers will stop processing products. |
| Min Handling Time | Minimum time in seconds to process each product. |
| Mean Handling Time | Mean time in seconds to process each product. |
| Max Handling Time | Maximum time in seconds to process each product. |
| Rule | Rule used to determine if products are handled or not. |
| Busy Handler | Number of handlers currently handling a product. (Read only, the value displayed is the value when the property panel was displayed) |
| Products Waiting | Number of products currently on all the From conveyors. (Read only, the value displayed is the value when the property panel was displayed) |
| Missed Products | Number of products that have left the From conveyors and therefore been “missed” by the handlers because they were busy. (Read only, the value displayed is the value when the property panel was displayed) |
| Lateral Offset | Lateral offset value applied to a product before being dropped. |