Defining Detailed Product Flow

You can define the product flow and flow behavior in System Editor between two systems with all required flow details.

Important: If Process Flow Simulation is installed, additional capabilities are available for the definition of routing and acceptance criteria. For more information, see the Process Flow Simulation User's Guide.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
Creating a Product Flow

Define the Detailed Product Flow

You can easily define the product flow and flow behavior between selected systems. You can also create operations and ports, link between ports, link between ports and operations, link between operations and ports, and edit flow details.

  1. Create a system structure with product flow links between the systems.



  2. From the Authoring section of the action bar, click Define Detailed Product Flow .
    The Define Product Flow dialog box appears.



  3. Select the source system in one of the following ways:
    • Select the source system in From System drop-down menu.
    • Click and then select source system in the authoring window.
    The table is initialized with operations from the selected system. Ports are proposed for each of these systems.



  4. Select the target system in one of the following ways:
    • Select the target system in To System drop-down menu.
    • Click and then select target system in the authoring window.
    The table is initialized with operations from the selected system. Ports are proposed for each of these systems.



    Note: If Process Flow Simulation is not installed, Route order, Route mode, Acceptance order, and Acceptance mode are not available. For Process Planning, these are set by default as follows:
    • Route order and Acceptance order: FIFO (first in/first out)
    • Route mode and Acceptance mode: First allowed. The product is routed from any upstream system and to any downstream system.
  5. Double-click a cell under the Operation column to specify or create new operations for the selected systems.
    • Select an existing operation of the selected system from drop-down menu.
    • Select Create General Operation or Create Loading Operation to create a new operation for the selected system. These options are available for General and Transformation systems. The Create New Operation option is available for Buffer, Transfer, and Sink systems

    The symbol is displayed on modified rows until you click Apply.

  6. Select an existing port or create a new port for the selected systems.
    • Double-click a cell under the Port column and select the desired port of the selected system from drop-down menu.
    • Select Create IN Port\Create OUT Port from the drop-down menu to create a new port.

    A port is an object through which the material flows.

  7. Click Apply to apply the flow details.

Create Flow Connection

You can create a flow connection between two objects. The link can be created between operation and a port, between two ports, or between port and an operation.

  1. To link an operation to a port for a given system only:
    1. Select a system in From System and select None in To System or vice-versa.
    2. Select the cell under the Operation column and select operation from the drop-down menu.
    3. Select the cell under the Port column and select the required port from the drop-down menu.
    4. Click Apply to create the flow connection.
  2. To link an operation to a port between two systems:
    1. Select a system in From System and To System.
    2. Select the cell under the Operation column and select operation from the drop-down menu.
    3. Select the cell under the Port column and select the required port from the drop-down menu.
    4. Click Apply to create the flow connection.
  3. To link a port between two systems:
    1. Select a system in From System and To System.
    2. Select the cell under the Port column for both From System and To System and select the required port from the drop-down menu.
    3. Click Apply to create the flow connection.

Use the Context Menus

You can access more Product Flow capabilities such as operation properties, flow deletion and port deletion in the context menus.

  1. Right-click any row to access context commands.
    • Properties: Opens the operation's Properties dialog box.
    • Add New Row: Inserts a new row.
    • Delete Flow: Deletes the flow connection between operation and port.
      Note: The symbol appears in the row for which flow connection is deleted.
    • Undo: Cancels the last action. For example, after deleting a flow connection between operation and port you can restore it with Undo.
  2. Right-click Port row to access an additional context command.
    • Delete Port: Deletes the selected port. A confirmation is needed if the selected port is reused by other connection objects.
  3. Optional: Use the context menu of the columns header to customize the view by hiding columns.