Good observation and your German is good. ;-)
About the calculation: Is it relevant to add the box spacing of 250mm per box? The spacing of 250 mm is upon handover to the line sorter. Is the spacing relevant for a single BOM line?
hahaha. I just realized the flow is in the opposite direction from what I had been imagining: the Main line is fed by the BOM lines, not the other way 'round. Maybe someone else should chime in here
.
Anyway, it is the timing of the delivery of parcels from the BOM lines to the Main line that sets the gaps on the Main line, which in turn sets the gap at the line sorter. So yes, the 250mmm of line sorter gap is not
directly applicable to the BOMs, it
does affect the BOM delivery timing strategy.
The one invariant os the overall
system parcel rate: the sum of all BOM lines' parcel rates cannot exceed that.
Also, for any one BOM line to put a parcel onto the Main line, there needs to be an 800mm gap minimum on the Main line: two 250mm gaps, upstream and downstream, plus 300mm for the parcel to be placed; and if the gap is exactly 800mm it cannot extend more than 250mm downstream from where the BOM can place the leading edge of the parcel. If the gap is 850mm, then there will be extra gaps, which in turn reduces the overall parcel rate.
So, in addition to the formula, which gives the theoretical maximum system rate, you will need to put in fudge factors for
- control noise: if DOM deliveries can control gaps to +/-20mm, then the setpoint (target) gap on the Main line will have to be 270mm to maintain the 250mm minimum
- common noise: say the most upstream BOM has a box but sees a space of 1000mm to the next downstream box. It might be a good idea to wait until that space grows to 1350mm so two boxes might fit (2 x 300 + 3 x 250) in front of its current box. But what if it does wait and there are no boxes for those gaps? Then that wait delays the placement of the next box after its current box and 350mm of space has been wasted, with a corresponding loss in the system rate.
This is going to be an interesting algorithm; you might want to do some research into literature regarding traffic flow, traffic lights, on-ramps to motorways and such.
