Conveyor

The conveyor is used to model the transportation of parts over a distance with a certain speed. The distance is specified as the length of the conveyor. Parts enters and exits the conveyor in a FIFO (first in first out) manner, i.e. parts can not overtake one another on the conveyor. The orientation (length- or breadth-wise) of the parts on the conveyor is determined by the orientation setting of the conveyor. The conveyor also has two different operational modes (1) accumulating - parts are stacked after one another at the end of the conveyor and (2) non-accumulating - the conveyor is stopped as soon as one part reaches the end of the conveyor, i.e. distances between parts on the conveyor is maintained.

Entry

A part is allowed to enter the conveyor as soon as the beginning of the conveyor is unoccupied, i.e. not covered by another part. In other words, parts enters the conveyor with their front and the next part can enter first when the rear of the previous part has passed the beginning of the conveyor.

Exit

A part is allowed to leave the conveyor as soon as the front of the part reaches the end of the conveyor. If the part doesn't get blocked it then leaves the conveyor immediately, i.e. it is picked with out the need to be transported so that the rear of the part reaches the end of the conveyor.

Settings

The settings of the Conveyor are listed below along with a short description and possibly a link to a more detailed description about the setting.

Setting

Description

Enabled	On/Off toggle for the visualization of conveyor contents during animation (see example to the right), On = True and Off = False.
Interval	Update interval (in seconds) for the visualization of conveyor contents.
Name	Sets the name of the object.
Location	Displays the location of the object.
Accumulating	Boolean that determines if parts should be stacked on the conveyor (True) or if distances between parts on the conveyor should be maintained (False).
Length	Used to sets the length of the conveyor, unit [meter].
Speed	Used to sets the speed of the conveyor, unit [meter/second].
Orientation	Used to determine if parts travel along their length- or breadth-direction on the conveyor.
Use capacity	If True the setting Capacity of the Conveyor can be used to limit the number of parts on the Conveyor.
Capacity	Specifies (if setting Use capacity is True) the maximum number of parts allowed on the Conveyor. Used when space restrictions alone aren't enough. Range [1,∞).
Disturbance	A detailed description about disturbances can be found here.
Exit Strategy	The exit strategy sets how variants/products should exit from the object to its successors. See exit strategy for more details.
Dispatch	The dispatch setting sets how variants/products waiting to enter the object should be prioritized. See dispatch for more details.
Timetable	If the object follows a certain Timetable it will be shown here. The input-field has a drop-down containing all timetables in the model as well as an option none. Using this drop-down it is possible to select a different timetable or remove the timetable from the object by selecting none.
User attributes	Lists all attributes that the user has added to the object. See User attributes for more details.