This week we are shining a spotlight on one of Simul8’s most useful advanced building blocks – Conveyors. They are very flexible and are especially effective when creating a simulation in a manufacturing environment. Conveyors can help to make your model look more intuitive and relatable. 

We have put together 5 top tips for using conveyors: 

1. You can click and drag the black box at the end of a conveyor to change its length. If you only want the visual length to change and not the simulated length, un-tick ‘Lock Length and Display’ under the conveyor Properties tab.
2. Simul8 can model work items that take up different amounts of space on the conveyor. You can do this using a Special Label called ‘Length’. The sum of the length labels of work items on the conveyor cannot be longer than the length of the conveyor. 
3. To match a conveyor’s true-life behaviour, you can control whether the distance between work items is fixed, or not, using the ‘Accumulating’ feature. Similarly, if your work items are ‘pushed along’ rollers instead of a powered conveyor, turn off the ‘Allow Gaps’ option. Find these options under the Additional tab when the conveyor is selected.
4. Just as with activities, you can set a conveyors Efficiency to allow for down time. This can be found under the Properties tab. If your conveyor does not run continuously, you can also apply Shifts from the Additional tab. See Shift Dependant Conveyors. 
5.  Activities can be placed alongside, to Pick and Place work items on the conveyor. Work can also be completed on work items as they travel, without removing them from the conveyor. 

This is just an introduction to some of the functionality of Conveyors. If you would like to learn more about these powerful building blocks, we have recently added a new module to Simul8 Academy. Check it out here!

We hope you found this tip useful, if you have any other applications/scenarios you would like to see in our Simul8 Tips section, share them with us at support@simul8.com 

Happy Simul8ing!