TU Darmstadt » MB » Deparment DiK » Education » Simulation of production systems and processes using Tecnomatix Plant Simulation 11

Material flow objects I

Tecnomatix Plant Simulation is a discrete-event simulation tool. Each model consists of multiple objects Most of them are material flow objects.They simulate specific material flow elements of your physical or virtual shop-floor.

Tecnomatix Plant Simulation uses pictographs to represent complex resources such as goods, drilling machines or workers. The complexity of each object is reduced to a set of attributes and methods, forming a class element. Each class element can be used to simulate a multiplicity of ambivalent tasks. All these material flow objects have in common that they process material units. Therefore they have either at least one input (1) or one output (2) as well as a set of processing times (t)(see figure 1).



Figure 1: Material flow element with (1) input, (2) output and (t) processing time.

In the following subchapter a set of material flow elements are described:

  • Connector,
  • Material units,
  • Source and drain,
  • Frame and interface,
  • Single processing and assembly,
  • Buffer,
  • Flow control
  • Event controller and simulation

 

Create your simulation model

  1. Start with creating a new model. Left click on the "New"-Icon or choose the menu entry "File > New".
  2. In the "Manage Class Library"-Dialogue select  the following material flow class libraries in the tab "Basic objects":
    • Connector,
    • EventController,
    • Frame,
    • Interface,
    • Source,
    • Drain,
    • SingleProc,
    • Assembly,
    • Buffer, and
    • flow control.
  3. You equally need the following resources:
    • Workplace,
    • FootPath,
    • WorkerPool,
    • Worker,
    • Broker, and
    • ShifCalendar.
  4. You equally need the following material units (MUs):
    • Entity,
    • Container, and
    • Transporter.
  5. All other available basic objects are optional. In the tab "Libraries" you do not have to select any item. You can change the selection at any time chosing the menu entry "Menu > Manage Class Library...".
  6. If desired, you can save this model to any location for example to "02_BasicElements.spp" on your desktop.

In the course of this tutorial you will further extend this model.