Use Request and Require to manage values pulled from a list

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In FlexSim, Lists help you organize, manage, and process groups of related items or entities.

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You can control how many values are pulled from your List and directed to the next step in your process flow

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by using the Request and Require functions, which are set within the Pull from List activity.

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The Request Number asks for a specified number of entities from the List,

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while the Require Number is the number that must be met before the process or task can proceed.

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The Request Number must be greater than or equal to the Require Number,

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and when used in conjunction, they function as the minimum and maximum number of entities to pull from a List.

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Shown here is some information about Request and Require,

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as well as a List example with Push to List and Pull from List activities to illustrate these functions.

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Click Pull from List.

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Here, in Quick Properties, the Request Number is set to 3, and the Require Number is set to 1.

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This means that if there are three or more items available on the List, the puller will pull three items.

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However, if there are less than three items, it will pull as many items as possible, with a minimum of one.

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Open the Pull from List Quick Properties again to see that it will assign a label to the puller token that corresponds to the pulled token.

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When there are multiple labels, as in this example,

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an array helps to capture and organize multiple values, so you can easily view them.

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The simulation is Reset and Run and the View Entries dialog for the List is opened.

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The simulation is paused, and you can see three tokens that pushed to the List.

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The token names appear as Values in the List.

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The simulation is Run again, and a token is generated to Pull from List.

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The token pulls the first three values, since the Request Number is set to 3, and more than three items are available in the List.

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Next, click the puller token.

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In Properties, the names of the three pulled tokens are labels, indexed in the Array.

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Notice that there is another value on the list—id:5.

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Run the simulation again, and a token is generated to Pull from List.

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This time, the puller token pulls just that one value, because the Require Number is set to 1, and only one value is available on the List.

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Click the puller token to see that its Label matches the pulled token—id:5.

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The simulation is continued at an accelerated speed, and the Pull from List activity continues to pull three values from the List when available.

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You can also see that when only two values are available, the puller token pulls two values,

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since this number falls within the Request and Require settings.

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Use Request and Require in your Pull from List activity to manage the number of entities that you pull from your List.