Defining Product Flow and Flow Behavior

You can create and visualize the product flow links.

This task shows you how to:

Create Product Flow Link
Visualize Product Flow Linked Operation
Visualize Product Flow Linked Operation in Charts

Create Product Flow Link

You can define and view the product flow link between operations in the Process Planning app.

Create a new operation on General system.
See Adding or Removing Operations and Operation Parameters
Select Compass > Simulation Apps , and choose the Process Planning app.
Select a General system and open the Manufacturing System Gantt .
See About the Process Gantt Chart.
Select a General system and click Create a Product Flow command, choose an existing operation and a new operation.
The message Constraint has been successfully created appears to confirm that the product flow link is created between the selected operations.
- Product flow link originates either from loading or from General operations. But, it ends only on a General operation.
  Notes:
  The product flow link can end on a loading operation, but the loading operations does not implement any manufactured item.
  
  If the loading operation implements a manufactured item, then the data from product flow links are ignored.
  
  To consider inputs from Data Requirement for an operation along with Data Flow input, you need not create Data Flow inputs in case Data Requirement inputs already exist.
- You can create a product flow links between two systems, two operations, or between a system and an operation using Create a Product Flow.
- Data flow considers input from data requirement for an operation with Data Flow input, so you need not create Data Flow inputs if Data Requirement inputs exist.

Visualize Product Flow Linked Operation

You can view the product flow linked operation in the Define Operations dialog box.

Right-click general system in System Editor and select Define Operations from the context menu.

The Inputs and Outputs column are filled for new operation.

The new operation name is updated with output string in Outputs column.

If you create a link between product flow linked operation and the new operation, then the Inputs column displays DFLinkedOperationName.Output.

For the general operation:

the output is either output of a manufactured item (if it implements a manufactured item) or outputs are from the receiving product flow links.
If Implement and product flow exist;
- then the product flow links are ignored, and the output is derived from the implement links (resulting product).

The inputs of a general operation are deduced either from:

originating product flow links or
from the data requirement links of implementing manufactured item (if any).

Therefore, if the operation has a product flow input, then all the inputs should be defined through the product flow inputs.

The Manufactured Item column displays None, since the operation is not associated to any manufactured item.

If a newly created operation is associated to any manufactured item, then all the corresponding products are highlighted in the PPR Context, when the operation is selected in the Define Operations dialog box.

Visualize Product Flow Linked Operation in Charts

You can view the product flow linked operation in the product requests charts. The operation that includes product flow link is shown in requests and counts.

Select a General system with product flow links and run the simulation.
Click the Current State tab for General system in which product flow linked operation is created.

In the Operations tab, place the pointer over the bar chart to see processing time for the operations as a tool tip.
Click the Statistics tab and select Products.

Place the pointer over the bar chart to view the products consumed and produced information as a tool tip.
Click to launch HTML report for this General system.
The DFLinkedGeneralOperation.Output appears in the Products section.