About Routing Constraints

In many process-manufacturing environments, there are limitations as to what resources can feed another resource. For instance, centrifuge 1 can only be fed by storage tank 1 or 2, or the bottling line can only be fed by tank 1. Routing constraints give you additional tools to limit the resources usable for the production steps of a certain product. They can significantly reduce the complexity sometimes encountered when modeling specific situations.

Routing constraints can be defined between resource groups (process resource groups and tank resource groups), between resources (processes and tanks), and between a resource and a resource group. A route is either allowed or not allowed. For example, you have 6 existing tanks that connect to a can line. A seventh tank is installed but for some reason that tank cannot be connected to the can line. That route would be marked as not allowed and as direct link.

Allowed routes are displayed as "---->" in the type column, those that are not allowed are displayed as "--/->". Routing constraints that have been added automatically show a check mark in the Auto column. You can define constraints between resources that are not directly linked in stages by indicating that the connection is "indirect".