Modelling guide
Cells with a carriage table: a second infeed, or a safe position for a check
A work table takes units from one side only, but units must reach it from two places (the line, and a store of parts bought ready for that work), or a unit must be checked at a safe place beside the line before the work.
Built in A field or setting does it directly.
When
On the floor one cell of two tables does it: a carriage table, which moves across between two positions, and the work table.
How
- The carriage table is a transfer (Hardware → Transfer: a carrier, one table, its lateral speed and handoff). Make a cell of it and the work table: select them on the canvas, or the two machines in Hardware, and create a cell. The carriage table goes first. A cell is one machine with one price and footprint, and its tables are its parts.
- Two infeed positions: a unit from the line goes straight onto the work table. A unit from the side rides the carriage across, the table's track at its lateral speed. Meanwhile units from the line wait.
- A safe position for a check: give the carriage table the check as a task and tick Done in the other position (
side_stop). The table takes the unit there, the check is done, and the table brings it back before the work table. Use it for a check of the previous station's work. - Parts from a store: a product made only from that work on (bought ready, not made from the start) gets Arrives from (Product table,
arrives_from) naming the store machine. It enters the line at that store and never at the line's start. - A cell is a fixed drawing: its tables, its internal buffers and the scrap bins you select with them when you create it (a bin for the table whose scrap or offcuts it takes: a step's
byproduct, as in Scrap bins, by-products and recycling) stand where you drew them. The station before the cell lines up with the part units enter by, and the station after it with the part they leave by. A cell of two tables stacked across the line takes units in on one row and hands them on on the other. - To add a part to a cell afterwards (a scrap bin, a buffer, a table), drop it against the cell's frame on the canvas, or select it with the cell, then choose Update cell (the cell in your library, wherever it is used) or Save as new cell (the old cell stays as it was).
- A carriage table on its own in the line can serve a station beside it (link both ways): a unit with work there rides across and back, the others go straight on. A table that does work of its own (it raises the unit, say) is never bought by Build layout as a junction.
- Keep each variant in your library as its own machine: a plain work table (straight feed), the cell with two infeeds, the cell with the safe position. Build layout uses the variant each stage's work needs: the check cell where the check is, the two-infeed cell where a store feeds in (and places the store beside it). Otherwise it uses the cheapest. It never makes a variant you do not have.
Check
Panels made here are prepared, assembled, checked and finished; 40% are bought ready for assembly and come from a store. Build layout uses both cells and the store, every bought panel enters at the store, and the check is done at the safe position on the way to the finish table.