Warehouse supply/demand display

[screw123]

Just bought the Banking DLC multiple level warehouse is a brilliant idea!

I got a confusing display I am trying to figure out.

What I am trying to do is to setup multiple factories, feed all output to a warehouse, then supply to all retail stores.
However what I saw is factories has low utilization, warehouse workers also not working very hard, but then warehouse shows demand > supply, which I think is strange.

I am using RealWorld Mod.

I got 1 warehouse dedicated to only Biofuel for all 3 levels. I can see the supply far exceeds demand. Some units is working close to 100% efficiency (those on level 1),

1.jpg (123.02 KiB) Viewed 2797 times

However on level 3 some of the units stop working, for both input and output

2.jpg (132.54 KiB) Viewed 2797 times

The supply demand chart of the product shows demand far exceeds supply, then why the units stop working?

FYI the factory that supplies to warehouse is like this, as you can see it shows supply far exceeds demand

3.jpg (125.04 KiB) Viewed 2797 times

I suppose in this case since demand is so huge, the warehouse output workers should try to work hard to push items out of warehouse. Then why the warehouse output units has zero utilization?

[saffgee]

I don't think your layout is efficient; the input unit you refer to with your circles is only supplying the storage and one output, which itself is supplied by another input AND the storage unit. I suspect removing the storage side connectors to the output units should work wonders (ie then storage only serves the bottom three units), and you may actually want to consider dropping an output to accommodate the inputs in the middle of the layout so that they access all outputs equally. So input across the middle and two storage with 4 output - in my experience this gives you a better buffer when dealing with supply/demand fluctuations. That should far more efficiently suck your factory dry.

[Brutus]

Input/Output and even Storage Units are directly exchangeable with each other. (Note: This rule only applies to warehouses, in retail stores one Purchasing Unit can supply 2 Sales Units for example, which is a source of confusion to a lot of players)

1 (warehouse) Input can exactly feed 1 (warehouse) output. No more. The same goes for a storage unit, it can feed exactly one output. Your setup where you have 1 storage feed into 5 outputs cannot possibly feed those outputs because the storage unit does not have the capacity to feed that much.

If you have 3 inputs and 5 outputs and one storage (as in your example) you will find that you will have 2 outputs not working ... and lo and behold ... that is exactly the case. (Image 1)

If you want a decent amount of storage capacity while maintaining maximum input/output capacity a 3x3x3 layout is most efficient. 3 Input to 3 storage to 3 output. (this allows you to feed the total produce of 3 factories to any number of retailers that can soak up that supply. You need 1 input per output because otherwise it won't be able to otherwise utilize all the incoming produce stream flowing between those units)

Alternatively if you want to link up 4 factories and don't need a lot of storage, you can put inputs in every corner and outputs at every edge and put a (optional) single storage in the middle that links to all outputs. However, the storage will only fill up if there is excess supply that is not soaked up by any regular demand placed on output units. This is the 4x4(x1) layout and is (probably) the most efficient method to link up 4 factories (or to do advertising without wasting unit space elsewhere)

On your third floor (image 2), the reason why your input and output units aren't working properly is because the storage unit in the middle is already full and as 1 storage can only feed 1 output even though its full, it can't empty out as fast as it gets fed with which becomes the bottleneck causing the other input units that feed into the storage to slow down because they can't actually dump anymore produce into it anyway. Nor can the last 3 output units get fed with properly because their supplier (the storage unit) has to feed 5 of them but only has capacity for 1 of them. Therefore it is quite inefficient. This layout only has about a 60% efficiency rating.

You are also (possibly) making a rookie mistake in thinking that the yellow supply bar at the input unit of the warehouse refers to the supply that the input unit can still give. This is incorrect as it refers to how much supply is left on the producers end (the sunflower factory) which is the previous (sales) unit in the chain essentially. In other words, how much input it can still receive, not give out. Your input unit is already at 100% utilization as you can see on floor 1 for example. You are confusing the yellow supply bar with the brown utilization bar's purpose.

You will find that the yellow supply bar of the input unit in relation to its orange demand bar is actually the very same bar that you see in your biofuel factory as being excess supply not being soaked up by a buyer.

The yellow supply bar therefore with an input unit refers to whether or not the supplier to that particular input unit actually has remaining capacity to supply that unit properly. If the yellow bar is greater than the orange bar it means that the input unit can work at 100% and even shows how much excess supply could still be used. If it is lower than the orange bar it means that the input units maximum capacity is handicapped due to supply issues. The yellow bar does NOT refer to the actual supply that this unit can give but thus rather to the previous unit supplying that particular unit. It's a feedback bar in essence. If you want to know at what capacity that particular input unit is working at simply look at the brown utilization bar at the bottom of the unit.

TL:DR
Just go with a 3x3x3 input if you want decent storage. Go with the 4x4(x1) if you only want to only use the warehouse to link factories and maximize throughput. (recommend 4x4 and no storage or adds to see how it improves.)

[EDIT]
Just tried the mod myself going for the biofuel. If you are using the mega factory for products then you will need to hook it up with 2 inputs and 2 outputs to drain a whole mega factory of it's supply properly, just 1 won't cut it. You ideally want a 4x4(x1) setup in the warehouse for max efficiency. I use the (x1) for advertising rather than doing it in the factory or at the retail store.

Boy does this part of this mod seem a bit unbalanced/unrealistic though. I'm using more than 10 large factories to produce biofuels, but I barely require 1 farm ... all of this to satiate the market demand of 1 product for a population of 1,3 million. That'd would be 3x the amount of large factories or 30 factories! for just biofuels if this were a big city ... omgosh

[screw123]

Thanks for the reply, very useful and explains clearly!

Yes I am trial running with RealWorldMod and I found several issues and I think profit comes in too fast