Floworks Concepts

Welcome to FloWorks

The Talumis FloWorks module for FlexSim consists of over 20 objects which have been carefully designed to aid in simulating systems that move material as a continuous flow. The material does not necessarily need to be liquid, but can be nearly anything that is measured by weight or volume. In contrast, the standard FlexSim library is designed to move material that is in discrete amounts (boxes, pieces, etc).

To give just a few examples, FloWorks has been used to successfully model hydrocarbons (oil & gas), chemical pellet logics, pet food production, vegetable processing and continues to be used for many other applications.

Getting started with FloWorks

Even though FloWorks is not created and maintained by FlexSim, Inc. and is therefore considered a third party module, great care has been taken to integrate it with the FlexSim software as closely as possible. If you have at least a basic proficiency in FlexSim, mastering FloWorks should be fairly straightforward for you. The following resources are available to help you with this.

Basic concepts

Even though the mechanisms in FloWorks should closely resemble those of FlexSim, in the end FlexSim has been designed to work with discrete items while FloWorks models continuous flows, so there will be differences. We recommend that you start by reading the pages in the "FloWorks concepts" section of this manual, to get a basic overview of the most important parts of the FloWorks module.

Tutorials

For a hands-on introduction to the software, consider completing some of the FloWorks tutorials in the User Manual. Before you begin please also read the basic introduction to tutorials.

Training and Customer Support

For one-on-one help using the software, consider taking a FloWorks class or contacting customer support. You can contact the creator of the FloWorks module directly at [email protected] or post your questions on the FlexSim Answers site which is also monitored by the developers of this module.

What is in this manual section?

The Modules → FloWorks section of the manual is divided into several subsections.

Some of these sections are longer reads, suitable for getting to know the software or to gain a better understanding of FloWorks. Other sections are meant as a reference, focusing less on the concepts and more on the various controls and how to use those. Often the reference sections can also be reached by using the various Help options built into FlexSim.

This portion of the manual is roughly divided in the following way:

FloWorks concepts

This section explains the ideas FloWorks is based on. Before using the FloWorks module, it is recommended that you quickly read through these pages to avoid confusing surprises while getting to know the module. Once you are more experienced in FloWorks, you may want to read through these sections more thouroughly to really start understanding these concepts.

Tutorials

This section contains a set of tutorials specifically designed for FloWorks. They assume a basic working knowledge of FlexSim, if necessary make sure to go through the FlexSim tutorials first before diving into FloWorks. Besides teaching you the basics of FloWorks, the tutorials will also showcase a few different industries and applications.

3D Objects

This section contains the reference for the FloWorks objects that can be added to a 3D model. Each object's page starts with a quick overview of the key concepts and use cases, followed by an overview of the states, statistics, events and cross links to the property panels of that object.

Process Flow

This section contains the reference for the FloWorks activities that can be added to the process flow of your model, as well as an overview of the process flow templates that come with FloWorks out-of-the-box.

Tools

This section contains the reference for those FloWorks features that can (only) be accessed from the model Toolbox.

FlexScript Class Reference

This section contains the reference for the commands and object types defined in FloWorks. Generally you will not need to use this part of the manual unless you are already using FlexScript and wish to use it to control FloWorks models from within event triggers, user commands, etc.