Setting up production chains

[evan123]

Hello

I am using Surveyor 2.0 trying to build out a route that has functional production chains.

Currently, I am using industrial tracks from SAP. Specifically, SAP_BI3_Paper.

I have set it up so that it takes inbound recycled paper on pallets, and outbound it produces toilet paper.

When I tried to run this in a driver session, with a loaded box car that has recycled paper on pallets, the box car does not unload on this track, but the track shows it has 20 units of toilet paper.


Does it sound like I am either using this track incorrectly? Is there a better way to setup production chains in TS22?

Open to suggestions / advice etc.

Thanks,

Evan

 

[GaryReggae]

Hope this helps

Hi Evan,

MSGSapper's excellent SAP BI3 multiple industries are what I use most for my supply chain and the paper one is a good example. I have made my own custom version of some, with paper being one as I wanted the change the input wood products to fit the UK log wagons but that is another matter and shows how much potential there is with these highly customisable industries but it took me a while to get my head round how to set them up. I will use the default SAP BI3 paper for this guide.

IMPORTANT: please ensure you have the latest version of the BI3 industry track from the DLS before investing time in configuring this as an obsolete version may not behave as expected.

First of all, in Surveyor 2.0 click on the SAP BI3 industry track, zoom in and there should be a small red and white ruler you can click and then there should be a small factory icon which means it is an interactive industry.

So looking at this, it has four tabs at the top, Queues, Tracks, Processes and Products.
Queues should already be set up, with one product in each queue. If you click on the product's thumbnail icon you can set the starting amount but in this case, the defaults are fine, there is a little bit of each product to start with.

Next up, the Tracks tab, which needs to be set up.

As these industries do everything (loading and unloading) on the same track then you need to add every product that is listed under Queues.
Click on the + sign and select the first product. It doesn't matter what order you add them. Once they are all added then you need to click on the thumbnail icon for each product and choose whether to Load into Vehicle or Unload from Vehicle, so outputs such as the Newsprint Paper Roll need to load and inputs such as the chemicals and pulpwood need to set to unload. If you click on the underlined text it will toggle between each option. You also need to click on the Queue number below the loading mode and set the correct queue but this should automatically suggest only one queue so select that.

I will come back to the Processes tab, as the product types need to be set up first.

Under the Products tab, click on each thumbnail icon like you did under the tracks tab. If you want to set a specific item of rolling stock then this will help in estimating the quantity but I usually leave it blank as you can use any railcar that can carry that product. The important thing is the Load size, click the underlined text and it will toggle between Tonnes, Litres/Gallons or Units:

• Tonnes are for bulk items such as coal or grain, carried in hopper or other open wagons.
• Litres/Gallons are for liquids such as oil or the chemicals used by the chemicals used by this paper industry, obviously carried in tank wagons.
• Units are for items, so a pallet or a roll of paper or a container, but it is easy to get confused with things like the pulpwood that is measured in unit loads rather than tonnes so a wagon load of wood = one unit. In terms of configuring Trainz rolling stock, a good test is can it be divided into say half a wagon of wood? You can't have half a roll of paper or half a pallet and while half a traincar of pulpwood is possible in the real world, a unit is a unit in Trainz! These are carried in boxcars/flatbeds or other specialised rolling stock.

I will continue this thread later and cover

• Setting up the Process tab
• Setting up railcars for delivering the pulpwood and taking out pallets and rolls of paper.
• Putting it all together and the bigger picture - a paper mill needs more than just pulpwood so where do the other inputs come from?

I hope this helps!

Kind regards,

Gary

 

[evan123]

Wow - Brilliant post / response Gary, this is exactly what I was looking for.

Thank you for taking the time to write everything out -with- screenshots, extremely helpful!

I'll have a crack at this here shortly and will report back if I can get most of it setup.

 

[GaryReggae]

Part 2

Part 2

First up the Processes tab. The default is for only process but I have found a way of adding more than one but it is a complex process needing editing to the config.txt code so will stick to the default for this guide.
This is when the production and consumption of the products is set up. It's a bit of a pain as the interface will only display three items on each side. You can add more but need to get the quantity right first time unless you delete all the other items on that side, which is partly why I added extra processes.

The first thing to set is the Duration, the fault is 30 seconds so it will consume and produce the number of items every 30 sec. I usually leave that at the default value.

Click on the large plus on the left-hand side of the orange arrow and add each input item, one by one. If you have set the product types correctly then it should show whether you are specify tonnes, volume (liquids/gases) or number of units. This is a guess in my case, it will need a lot of trial and error but is very rewarding when it works out.

For my own 'here's one I made earlier' BI3 Paper Mill, I used the following input quantities. I knew these things would come in handy so I started a spreadsheet of BI3 settings:

<kuid2:439337:100784:1> Recycled Cardboard Bales on Pallets			Units	2
<kuid2:439337:100777:1> Recycled Paper Bales on Pallets			Units	3
<kuid2:439337:100617:1> Hydrogen Peroxide Tankload			Litres	2000
<kuid:439337:105684> Sodium Hydroxide Bulk-SAP			Ton	100

<kuid:439337:105677> Chlorine Gas Tankload-SAP			Litres	1000
<kuid:439337:105671> Sulfuric Acid Tankload-SAP			Litres	2000
<kuid:473136:1156> Paper Pulp on Pallet			Units	7
<kuid:283805:99005> 16ft logs load			Units	10
<kuid:283805:99004> 10ft logs load			Units	16
<kuid2:225098:100248:1> Liquid Caustic Soda (Product)			Litres	3000
<kuid2:439337:100740:1> Dye in drums on pallet			Units	1
<kuid:439337:105669> Kaolin Bulk-SAP			Ton	20

I simplified the input pulpwood as there were numerous different loads but in, using a standard log load instead, I was inferring that the logs were pulped on site at the paper mill rather than a separate facility. If you are using several different pulpwood loads then the volume of log loads may need reducing - two loads each of five different pulpwoods are the same.

Now for the outputs:
Follow the same process as for the inputs. The paper mill only produces unit loads so no bulk or liquids and in my example, just one of each item.

<kuid:439337:105688> Newsprint Paper Roll-SAP

<kuid:439337:105689> Copy Paper boxed on Pallet

<kuid2:439337:100619:1> Tissue Paper Boxed on Pallet

<kuid2:439337:100618:1> Paperboard Stacked on Pallet

It's now time to put things into action!

I have added a SAP BI3 Logging. As we are only using two types of pulpwood for this example, we don't want to load the other types onto the log wagons and take up the capacity. You can either delete the products not needed from the source Bi3 Logging or my preferred option is to go the properties of the wagons and delete the products we are not going to use.

This should now work and generate pulpwood loads.

Much of the other stuff needed for making paper can be obtained from the SAP BI3 Chemical Works and the recycled paper and board come from the SAP BI3 Recycling and Scrap.

Now for the outputs. There is currently no market for the outgoing paper products but I want to make a printing shop; this is as far as that supply chain goes.

I will continue this tomorrow morning

Kind regard,

Gary

 

[valbridge]

This is a very nice explanation on how to etc. Personally I have often given up on setting chains like this b/c I get so damned confused.
Many thanks for taking the times to write up....really appreciated.
Cheers,
Val.

 

[GaryReggae]

Part 3

Morning all, Thanks for the kind comments, I'm glad this is of use.

Now for part 3.
So I added a SAP BI3 Logging industry yesterday and configured a couple of DES pulpwood flatcar/bulkhead wagons to load only one type of pulpwood each to simplify this demonstration. I have connected these directly with a short section of track to the SAP BI3 Paper. After a lot of experimenting, the method I usually use is to set each wagon to only accept one type of product, that way you can guarantee that product will be loaded whereas if you allow loading multiple types, you could end up a with a whole train full of the same type of wood instead of one wagon of each product.

You will also need to configure the BI3 Logging: I have only configured the two products I am going to use (Pulpwood Logs for SIECO Bulkhead DES and Log Load 01 for 63 ft Pulpwood Flatcar DES), they are already preconfigured under queues so just need to be added to tracks - set to load into Vehicle and select the queue number by clicking and accept the default. Set them to Units under the Products tab and then under Processes, just add the two output products and a quantity. I have used 10 here.

I would normally load the wagons with the other inputs (chemicals and recycled paper) from one of the other SAP industries (SAP BI3 Chemicals and Scrap & Recycling are both available on the DLS and I highly recommend them) but I am going to 'cheat' here and manually fill the incoming traincars.

• Add a tank wagon of your choice, any that load liquids should be fine
• Go to the properties of the wagon (in Surveyor Classic, click the question mark then click on the wagon; in S20 click on the wagon then the small wagon/traincar icon)
• Click the large + sign under load and select which product you want to add - you probably want to make a note of this by looking under the industry's queues tab as there are hundreds of products!
• Hydrogen Peroxide is the first liquid load we need. Normally you would leave it blank so as to be empty but for this exercise, type in a quantity. The Max Load above the + icon will tell you the wagon's capacity, in this case 28000. This is presumably in whatever unit of volume your Trainz is configured for, metric (litres) or Imperial (gallons).
• Also delete any existing products from the wagon.

• Repeat this process to add a tank car for each of the following:
  • Hydrogen Peroxide Tankload
  • Chlorine Gas Tankload-SAP
  • Sulfuric Acid Tankload-SAP
  • Printing Ink Tankload-SAP
• Add a covered hopper for the Sodium Hydroxide Bulk-SAP, this is the only bulk product used by the paper mill and set the quantity for example to 20000, about 2/3 full
• Finally, add a couple of flatbed or van wagons for each of the two recycled paper products. The good thing with these products is they are a visible load and remember these are the number of items rather than the weight in tonnes. They are: Recycled Paper Bales on Pallets and Recycled Cardboard Bales on Pallets. Enter at least 1 for the quantity. I would probably put a carload of each in but that depends on the size of your wagons, the ones here only have room for so not the best choice but you get the general idea.

So, you should now have a train that looks like this, containing every product needed to supply the paper mill expect the pulpwood, which will be loaded onto the separate train to the right. The commodity icons above each traincar and the green capacity bars are vital for running these complex industry chains.

There's one last reccomendation before going into Driver. The BI3 industries are invisible in Driver apart from the tiny ruler so I have added an arrow pointing to the centre of each.

With no further ado, let's get things rolling! Go into Driver, unpause and set the train with the empty Pulpwood wagons into motion, ensuring it is below 5 mph otherwise it will be too fast to load.

It's satisfying to see a lot of wood loading:

Let the train keep rolling until it gets to the BI3 paper and then it should unload...

...Well that's the theory but I can't unload anything at the BI3 Paper. I will look into this and update this post once I figured out the issue.

Kind regards,

Gary

 

[GaryReggae]

I have hopefully solved the unloading problem. The SAP BI3 Paper was an obsolete version. Downloading the latest version from the DLS has allowed me to unload both pulpwood and all the other input products. The out-of-date version wouldn't load the finished products either so I will add another post later about loading a train with finished paper products.

Kind regards,

Gary

 

[zsuda]

.. thankz evan123 for asking .. and thankz garyreggae for the tutor ..
i was already happy when i could load / unload one commodity using the settings of a multiple industry track .. i usually used the "chuck & joe" method ..
now i'm using surveyor 2.0 and i'm motivated to use more often those tracks and moreover : to create a "production chain" ..
have a nice weekend ..

 

[GaryReggae]

A train load of paper!

Thanks Zsuda for the kind comments, glad this is of use

This is the last part of my introduction to BI3 supply chains but I am pleased with the results.
The last stage is to configure boxcars to load the finished paper products. There are four and so my example has one boxcar for each product.

• So, add four boxcars/vans of your choice and go into their configuration page by clicking the small wagon icon in S20 or the ? symbol, in Surveyor Classic.
• Add the product of your choice in the same way we used for the input wagons - click the large + and add one of each of the four products:
  • Newsprint Paper Roll-SAP
  • Copy Paper boxed on Pallet
  • Paperboard Stacked on Pallet
  • Tissue Paper Boxed on Pallet
• Leave the quantity as 0 - so we have added the capacity for that product but not any product itself.

NOTE that the actual product I have added to the wagon shown here is different to the above list; I will come back to that at the end.

Now go into Driver and set the train in motion. I have added an extra two boxcars for two extra custom products I have added. I have added these as they are a visible load and this helps to demonstrate physical cargo being loaded. The two Polish boxcars here are chosen as they have an opening doors and a lot of attachment points for loads but there are various others on the DLS to suit everyone's taste.

Let the train roll past the BI3 Paper mill at less than 5 mph and she should load up with the products configured for the boxcars.

A couple of the cars are not fully loaded because this was a second run after I added the custom products and the industry was depleted of stock so this also demonstrates the importance of keeping these industries supplied.

The DLS has a lot of various commodities I have added to some of my BI3s, particularly where they allow a visual load. The ones here are <kuid2:523:19723703:1> Offset Paper and <kuid:206307:100410> Paper Roll (Bleached)

The SAP BI3 industries usually have a few empty queues to allow adding your own custom products like I have done here. If you need more products that there are queues then you can replace any of the existing if you aren't using them.

Happy Trainzing and let me know if you have any questions and I will try and answer them. I would also like to thank Bob (MSGSapper) for creating the BI3 industries and recently updating them, the realms of possibility are huge!

Kind regards,

Gary

 

[blueodessey]

Good Morning Gary and others,

Thank you so much for the Lesson of How To with Product Lists, this personally is one of my weakest links with Trainz, I always dread doing these, never quite got how to do them. :'(

Now I have another Project to do with lots of Benefits and Satisfaction, knowing Good Teacher Lessons it will work as intended.

Also Shout out to Bob, MSGSapper for his excellent work with B13 Track Modules. Love it when a plan comes together as the A-Team Show would say. :clap::clap:

:Y:Have a Blessed Sunday all, and here yet is another articulate example of how this Forum contains a Wealth of information. :Y:

 

[BummerDude]

Interesting that there are commodities that don't have any wagons that can load them. I know, I can ignore or add them .... but