How to return a pointer to a task executer

Here is what I am trying to do. I want the Multiprocessor to randomly pick an operator (a nurse) and the operator should come to the multiprocessor (a bed) and decide the process time. Someone told me that it is not possible to do in Flexsim with the way it is structured, since the operator an only be called only after once everything else about that process has been decided... So I thought of a work around..
Now I am going to insert a small 1 minute process before the main process. Call an operator for it..Identify it and store it in a label.. Retain operator for the next process and then use the label to decide the process time.. The problem is I am not sure how to identify and then retain the operator..
Can anyone help ??

If you can usethe label of the multiprocessor, you can do it using task sequence.
You can find how to use task sequence when doing task sequence tutorial in help user manual file (Help>user manual>Task Sequence Tutorial).

Before the operator(or the multiprocessor) use the process time, you should set the value of it to the label.

Best regards.

there is not just one multiprocessor using these operators there are 25 of them each representing a Bed.. the multiprocessor calls an operator (nurse) from a dispatcher which deals with 9 different kinds of nurses.. Each nurse has to take her own time to complete a process.. This is what I am looking to model... I cannot fix the type of nurse which will attend to the patient (item)... it has to be random..
I appreciate the fact that u replied but can u be a little more elaborate in what u r trying to say..

You can define or set the statistical function of the flexsim like normal or exponential to the label.
When you call the nurse, you can do it right before.

You upload the exercise model.

Thats a smart idea.. But the multiprocessor can only choose nurses on the basis of availability.. If I use a random number to choose the value of the label it will not take this into account.. I want to use a smarter way to do it.. I have not built the full scale model yet as I wanted to figure this out first.. Will upload a sample model soon..
Till then I ll re-phrase my question... I want to determine the process time of process 2 based on the operator called for process 1.. And I want to retain that operator for process 2 as well..

you are at the same point as at my last post. You have to build your own tasksequence. A start is the picklist template "pick operator with animation".
Important commands are requestoperators, freeoperators, TASKTYPE_UTILZE, TASKTYPE_STOPREQUESTFINISH, TASKTYPE_SENDMESSAGE. Look at the manual for these commands.
If you put a sendmessage task in your own tasksequence, you receive a message in the OnMessage trigger of the multiprocessor. With the command msgsendingobject() you get a reference to the operator which is arriving at your processor.
If you don't free the operators at the processfinish (Trigger: pick operator) the operator stays at the multiprocessor. you execute this command only at the last process.

Jörg

You can do this much easier in version 6 by using the "Tagged Resource" picklist options.

The "Pick Operator" and "Request Transport From" fields now have pick options called "Tagged Resource". These options write a label to the flowitem so that it knows which operator is working on the task.

An example of when this would be useful:
If you want the operator who carried a flowitem to a processor to stay at that processor for the processing time.

To do this, you just tag the resource in the Request Transport From, and then use this tagged resource again in the Pick Operator. Because you don't want that operator to be called away to do something else between these two operations, you set the "Hold" option to 1 on the transport and to 0 on the pick operation.

You can use this same mechanism to solve this problem easily. To do that, I added some custom code to the Process Time field to read a label off the tagged operator.

Attached is a sample that shows both operations (done almost entirely with pick lists).

Can you explain me what do I do after writing this much code at the pick operator field to retain the operator for the next process...

treenode callnurse = createemptytasksequence(centerobject(current,1),0, 0);
inserttask(callnurse,TASKTYPE_TRAVEL,current,NULL) ;
inserttask(callnurse,TASKTYPE_SENDMESSAGE,current, NULL,0,0,0,0);
inserttask(callnurse,TASKTYPE_UTILIZE,item,NULL,ST ATE_UTILIZE);

Originally Posted by Jörg Vogel

you are at the same point as at my last post. You have to build your own tasksequence. A start is the picklist template "pick operator with animation".
Important commands are requestoperators, freeoperators, TASKTYPE_UTILZE, TASKTYPE_STOPREQUESTFINISH, TASKTYPE_SENDMESSAGE. Look at the manual for these commands.
If you put a sendmessage task in your own tasksequence, you receive a message in the OnMessage trigger of the multiprocessor. With the command msgsendingobject() you get a reference to the operator which is arriving at your processor.
If you don't free the operators at the processfinish (Trigger: pick operator) the operator stays at the multiprocessor. you execute this command only at the last process.

Jörg

Thanks Phil for replying, but at this stage I am afraid of upgrading to the next version and learn it again.. Moreover I am not even sure if I can upgrade as this is a University license that I am working with..

Originally Posted by Phil BoBo

You can do this much easier in version 6 by using the "Tagged Resource" picklist options.

The "Pick Operator" and "Request Transport From" fields now have pick options called "Tagged Resource". These options write a label to the flowitem so that it knows which operator is working on the task.

An example of when this would be useful:
If you want the operator who carried a flowitem to a processor to stay at that processor for the processing time.

To do this, you just tag the resource in the Request Transport From, and then use this tagged resource again in the Pick Operator. Because you don't want that operator to be called away to do something else between these two operations, you set the "Hold" option to 1 on the transport and to 0 on the pick operation.

You can use this same mechanism to solve this problem easily. To do that, I added some custom code to the Process Time field to read a label off the tagged operator.

Attached is a sample that shows both operations (done almost entirely with pick lists).

Hello everyone.. I have attached the model I was trying to run.. (exp) Please look at the multiprocessors.. what I have observed so far is that although the Multiprocessor does call an operator as I want it to.. It starts the process before the operator has even reached it..
I also tried to build a fresh model and write a very small task sequence.. In that model, the multiprocessor calls both the operators even when I havent asked it to do so.. I had asked it free the operators on process finish trigger but to no avail.. Please also find this model attached (by the name of "1")

Hello Arjun,

if you want to start the process at arrival of the taskexecuter (nurse) you stop the object and resume the object with the tasktype STOPREQUESTFINISH in your task sequence.

If you don't change the nurse for different processes, you don't have to dispatch new tasksequences to the nurse. But you free the operator only at your last process. The utilze task stops with the command freeoperators.
As i observed, you have a reference to the active nurse. you can use this reference to free the nurse.

A freed operator does nothing. So it seems that she still stands next to processor and work. If you you want the operator move to some place, you have to dispatch a new tasksequence to that operator or you add a task after the utilze task in which you let travel the operator.

Jörg

So there are two things i interpret from this.. I do not need to write a new task- sequence for the main process as the operator is in the utilize state.. Once i free the operator, shouldn't he be assigned the next task sequence automatically by the dispatcher.. In th sample model that i had posted i use 2 nurses to cater to 4 multiprocessors.. S if the nurse is freed by the first multiprocessor should she not be automatically be available for the next multiprocessor..


I m still unable to understand how the stoprequestfinish task works..
Also i am unable to understand that when i write a simple task sequence as well.. The multiprocessor starts processing the item b4 the operator even reaches it..Although it does call the operator but does not wait for it to start the process..
I know it might be too much but can u write me a sample task- sequence.. All i want to do is call an operator for a dummy process.. Identify it and decide the process time for the main process on its basis while also retaining it for the main process..

Tasksequence Dummy process:
Sendmessage // you know the Nurse OnMessage trigger
// OnMessage set Label Pointer to the Nurse
// OnMessage stopobject dependent to the current processing item
travel //to the Processor
stoprequestfinish // the Processor and the Processing item
utilize //

please Look into the command help and Manual on stoprequestfinish, stopobject, resumeobject, freeoperators,

As per your suggestions I tried using the stopobject command after the first process. This is what I wrote:

On processfinish Trigger:
if (opnum == 1) stopobject(current,STATE_WAITING_FOR_OPERATOR);
if (opnum == 3) freeoperators(centerobject(current,1),item);

As u can see I have freed the operator after the third and the main process only (2nd is the dummy process),

On the pick operator picklist option I wrote the following code:

treenode callnurse = createemptytasksequence(centerobject(current,1),0, 0);
inserttask(callnurse,TASKTYPE_TRAVEL,current,NULL) ;
inserttask(callnurse,TASKTYPE_SENDMESSAGE,current, NULL,0,0,0,0);
inserttask(callnurse,TASKTYPE_STOPREQUESTFINISH,cu rrent);
inserttask(callnurse,TASKTYPE_UTILIZE,item,NULL,ST ATE_UTILIZE);
dispatchtasksequence(callnurse);

Still I am facing the same problem, the multiprocessor does not stop after the first process.. instead it goes on without waiting for the operator and then gets blocked at the end.
I tried to use the stopobject command on another multiprocessor, asked it to go into state 9 (Waiting_for_operator) state... yet it shows in the blocked state instead..

As per your suggestions I have read the command manual for the suggested commands thoroughly again. Yet I am still stuck.. Please rescue..

When I use the stopobject(current,9) command on entry trigger.. it works as intended.. however when I do so at the Process finish Trigger using if opnum == 1 condition, it does not seem to fire then.. however it does block the output of the multiprocessor.. Why does this happen ??

Phil,

this is on the model you posted earlier in this thread:
Tagging a resource seems to work as long as you start with a transport to tag. I changed the behavior of the model assuming no transport is required from the queue to the processor.
Now the first task tagging the operator has to be the process itself.
What happens is, that the processor is not waiting for the operator to arrive, but starts processing by itself. Once the operator reaches the processor it restarts the process time...is this a bug or did I make a mistake?

Thanks in advance

Ralf
FlexSim Germany

Ralf,
It looks like there is a bug in the Tagged Resource option of the Pick Operator picklist on the processor. Line 28 should read:

stopobject(current, STATE_WAITING_FOR_OPERATOR, OPERATOR_STOP_ID);

This error has now been fixed for the next release of FlexSim.

Matt,

first thanks for your reply. That works well and the processor is waiting for the operator to arrive now. But it seems to me that there is another bug, which isn't really visible in that configuration:
When you have a process as the first task to tag an operator, the operators reference is not stored in the label and the dispatcher will be used to choose another one for the following task. I didn't investigate that further so far.
Can you make sure this feature works properly for the next release since this is one really being high valued from customers? Let me know, if you want me to build a model to explain the bug further.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

Ralf
FlexSim Germany

A demonstration model would be useful. I played around with it, but I can't really find the issue.