A digital twin for a truly "tailor-made" automatic storage system. Technological development currently offers many opportunities to companies that want to automate their logistics system. Among these, dynamic simulation makes it possible to design the best possible storage system based on the characteristics and needs of the customer. By creating a "virtual storage system", the Wipro Ferretto tests the performance of the system taking into account all the factors involved, resolving any and all critical issues ahead of time and evaluating the most suitable solutions: from the incoming/outgoing flows to the hourly flows, from the picking stations to the handling speed. This is also how high-performance automatic storage systems are created, with a design process that makes the creation of prototypes unnecessary and translates into significant time and cost savings.
What is Dynamic Simulation?
Dynamic simulation is a technique based on the use of sophisticated state-of-the-art software, such as FlexSim. These tools create a simplified representation of a logistics system with the aim of improving the ability to understand, predict and control its behavior. In practice, with this software, the experts of Wipro Ferretto create a model – a digital twin – that replicates the organization, characteristics and operating methods of the automatic storage system to be built, not generically, but based exactly on the expected operating conditions. Simulation is thus especially useful in the planning of new systems and even entire plants.
Simulation becomes a tool that enables designers to meet the specific needs of any individual company. Starting from the project-specific variables – type of storage system, handling systems, peripherals, picking stations - we create a 3D model of the system with all its components and, with the help of flow diagrams, we start simulations to analyze hourly flows, system behavior, picking/placing time, material handling operations. Every single phase is tested, which makes it possible to use the collected data to evaluate whether the operating logic responds to the customer's needs, whether (and where) there are critical issues, and whether the system can be further optimized.
Some of the parameters that can be tested are:
Some examples of application include:
The main advantage of the use of simulation for automatic material handling systems is the ability to verify the design expectations and optimize the main parameters, thereby supporting companies from the design phase with an additional tool to increase analysis effectiveness and make better strategic decisions.
These are the main benefits of simulation: