Flows are used to model the consumption and production of material from buffers.
Different types of flows exist:
- flow_start:
Flows that consume (or produce) material at the start of an operationplan.
The quantity consumed or produced is proportional to the quantity of the operationplan. - flow_end:
Flows that produce (or consume) material at the end of an operationplan.
The quantity consumed or produced is proportional to the quantity of the operationplan. - flow_fixed_start:
Flows that consume (or produce) material at the start of an operationplan.
The quantity consumed or produced is constant and independent of the quantity of the operationplan. - flow_fixed_end:
Flows that produce (or consume) material at the end of an operationplan.
The quantity consumed or produced is constant and independent of the quantity of the operationplan.
Fields
Field | Type | Description |
buffer | buffer | Buffer from which material will be moved or transferred into. This is a required field. |
operation | operation | Operation to which the material flow is associated. This is a required field. |
quantity | double | Material quantity being consumed or produced per unit of the operationplan. |
effective_start | dateTime | Date after which the material consumption is valid. Before this date the planned quantity is always 0. |
effective_end | dateTime | Date at which the material consumption becomes invalid. After this date (and also at the exact date) the planned quantity is always 0. |
priority | integer | Priority of the flow, used in case of alternate flows. The default is 1. Lower numbers indicate more preferred flows. |
name | non-empty string | Optional name of the flow. A name is only useful when using alternate flows. Otherwise leave it empty to save some memory. |
alternate | non-empty string or flow |
Name of the flow of which this is an alternate. When using the Python API the argument can be a flow or a string. When using the XML data format the argument is a string. |
search | string | Defines the order of preference among the alternate flows. The valid choices are:
|
action | A C AC (default) R |
Type of action to be executed:
|
Example XML structures
- Defining a flow
<plan> <flows> <flow xsi:type="flow_start"> <buffer name="buffer component"/> <operation name="operation B"/> <quantity>-2</quantity> </flow> </flows> </plan>
- Defining a flow nested in an operation structure.
A quantity 2 of component A OR 3 of component B are consumed, and 1 unit of the end item is produced.<plan> <operations> <operation name="operation B"> <flows> <flow xsi:type="flow_start"> <buffer name="buffer component A"/> <quantity>-2</quantity> <name>group1</name> <priority>1</priority> </flow> <flow xsi:type="flow_start"> <buffer name="buffer component B"/> <quantity>-3</quantity> <alternate>group1</alternate> <priority>2</priority> </flow> <flow xsi:type="flow_end"> <buffer name="buffer end item"/> <quantity>1</quantity> </flow> </flows> </operation> </operations> </plan>
- Defining a flow nested in a buffer structure
<plan> <buffers> <buffer name="buffer component"> <flows> <flow xsi:type="flow_start"> <operation name="operation A"/> <quantity>-2</quantity> </flow> <flow xsi:type="flow_start"> <operation name="operation B"/> <quantity>-1</quantity> </flow> </flows> </buffer> </buffers> </plan>
- Deleting a flow
<plan> <flows> <flow action="R"> <buffer name="buffer component"/> <operation name="operation B"/> </flow> </flows> </plan>