Introducing Simio Version 15.240 – June 2022

New Desktop Edition Features

Ride On Transporter Property Enhancement

This customer requested feature allows you to now select ‘Never’, ‘Always’, or ‘Conditional’ for the Ride On Transporter on a Transfer Node. This feature was implemented to give additional flexibility with regards to dynamically riding on transporters.

Additional Task Sequence Add-On Process Triggers

This customer requested feature adds four additional Add-On Process Triggers in Task Sequences of Servers, Combiners, and Separators. These additional Triggers are ‘Seized Resource’, ‘Released Resource’, ‘Consumed Material’, and ‘Produced Material’.

Results Resource Gantt Enhancement – Professional and RPS Only

This customer requested feature displays the Population Members for Workers and Vehicles on the Resource Gantt that is located in the Results tab. This was designed to improve debugging of Simio models when there is more than one population member of a transporter.

Ability to Set the Sequence Data Table Exports Occur – RPS Only

This customer requested feature allows you to define the order data tables should be exported out of Simio. The Set Export Sequence popup lives under the Export Options on a data table. This feature is useful for when data tables have dependencies on other data tables.

Improved STEP File Support

This user requested feature improves Simio’s ability to import STEP files in a model.

Improved Error and Trace Messaging

This feature provides extra context for table resolution in Trace and Error messages.

Open Plan From Portal Enhancement

This user requested feature pulls in the date and time that a Portal Run has occurred when using Open Plan From Portal on Simio Desktop. This was designed as a way to verify the date and time of a Portal Run while reviewing the model in Simio Desktop.

New Location Functions

This user requested feature provides two additional location functions that can be useful in determining an object’s projected location. ‘Location.Latitude’ and ‘Location.Longitude’ will provide an object’s projected latitudinal or longitudinal location.

Ability to Export a Neural Network Model to an ONNX File Format

This feature allows you to export either an ONNX Neural Network model that you previously added to the Simio project or a selected Feedforward Neural network Model that you built and trained directly within Simio. You can then import this saved ONNX file into a 3rd party software that supports ONNX file format.

Ability to Untrain a Neural Network Model

This feature allows you to easily revert a trained feedforward model back into the initial untrained state.

Untrained Prediction Value Expression Property

This new Neural Network property’s expression is used as a substitute to return a predicted output value if the associated Neural Network is not trained.

Neural Network Enhancements

This feature provides some general improvements for Neural Network models. Is Trained and Last Update Time (UTC) properties provide additional information that can be useful in monitoring a Neural Network model. Additionally, in the Neural Network Trainer the default Number Hidden Nodes for an untrained feedforward neural network model has been changed from being always ‘10’ to being the model’s input layer size.

TransferNode Enhancement

This user requested feature expands the Transporter List Name property on a TransferNode when the Transporter Type is ‘Select From List’. Prior to this Sprint, Transporter List Name had to be a List, but this enhancement now allows for it to also be table based.

Experiment Enhancement

This user requested feature allows Table Configurations to be included in an Experiment’s OptQuest optimization. Setting Include in Optimization to ‘Yes’ on a Configuration will allow that multiple Configuration Table to have OptQuest use its algorithm to enhance the optimization capabilities of Simio.

Ability to Toggle Experiment Statistical Results Recording

This user requested feature was designed to speed up Experiment run time by turning off any model statistics collections.  Setting Generate Statistics to ‘False’ can be useful for Experiment runs where only collecting KPIs from Responses is needed.

New Location Functions

This user requested feature was implemented to provide a new LocationAt.Cartesian(x,y,z) function that can be utilized in functions like LocationAt.Cartesian(0, 0, 0).Latitude or LocationAt.Cartesian(0, 0, 0).Longitude to get either the latitude or longitude geographic coordinates for any set of x, y, z Cartesian coordinates.

Ability to Set Length, Width, and Height of Auto-Created Objects from Data Tables

This feature allows for auto-created objects to have their Length, Width, and Height specified in columns of a data table. These three additional Object column properties will only appear when setting Default Value Instantiation to ‘AutoCreateInstance’.

Object Save Log

This feature tracks the Saved Date Time, Product Version, and Edition for each object in an .spfx file. A new entry will only be added if the Product Version or Edition is different from the last entry. This feature was designed to assist in debugging and can be found by right clicking on an object in the Navigation menu.

Save Log Enhancements

This feature includes an additional column that contains whether the object’s entry was added due to a save or a copy into another model as well as a change in time being recorded in UTC to local time. These changes were added to improve debugging.

Ability to Set Path Color of a Link Definition

This user requested feature allows you to set the Path Color of a link definition to something other than the default of ‘SaddleBrown’.

New String. Functions

This feature provides three new String functions within Simio. String.Replace returns a copy of the specified string where all instances of a specified substring are replaced with another specified string. String.RegEx.Contains returns True if a substring matching a specified regular expression pattern is found in the specified string. String.RegEx.Replace returns a copy of the specified string where all substrings matching a specified regular expression pattern are replaced with another specified string.

Generate Training Data for Neural Network Automatically

This feature provides a tool to simplify the process of generating a specific number of training data records for a Neural Network. Prior to Sprint 235, you would manually have to change the Replication Number of the model and then rerun, however, this feature allows that change to be done automatically and ensures that there will be no duplicate streams run.

Neural Network Save Training Data to CSV Enhancement

This feature allows a user to export the predicted value and error value for each training data record after running a trained Neural Network Model.

Starting Type Enhancement

When a Starting Type of ‘At the start of run, use current’ is selected for a model, this feature allows the time zone in which the model should be run in to be selected. By default, this value is set to ‘Device Time Zone’. This is particularly useful for models where the application is run in a different time zone than the physical location being modeled.

Ability to Reference State Column with TableName[Index1,Index2]

This user requested feature allows for you to directly reference a State Column by using TableName[Index1,Index2]. This feature was implemented to speed up models by reducing the amount of process logic needed to achieve the same functionality a different way.

Adam Optimizer

This Neural Network enhancement provides an additional Optimizer Type for the Neural Network Trainer. The Adam optimizer is an extension to stochastic gradient descent that has recently seen broader adoption for deep learning applications.

Ability to Copy Data from a Grid or Pivot Grid

This user requested feature was implemented to allow grid or Pivot Grid data from Simio Desktop to be copied and then later pasted into another field so it can be filtered.

Unsigned Files Open in Design Edition

This user requested feature allows for Simio files that are chosen to be saved unsigned to open in Design Edition. This may be useful for when multiple authors working on a Simio file. Note: The recommended value of Sign Files is ‘True’.

New JSON Functions

This feature adds two new JSON functions to Simio. 

String.Json.Count(String, Path) returns the number of elements in an array found in a specified JSON formatted string using the given path.

String.Json.Value(String, Path) returns the string representation of a value found in a specified JSON formatted string using the given path.

Constraint Logic Element Enhancement – Allow User-Specified Owner

This feature allows a specific object to be the owner of a Constraint Logic element. The Owner Type may be specified as either the object associated with the constrained process step, the parent object, or as a specific object reference.

Constraint Logic Element Enhancement – Reevaluate Number of Resources and Units per Resource Expressions

This user requested feature enhances resource constraint evaluation. Prior to Sprint 237, the Number of Resources and Units per Resource properties were only evaluated at the beginning of the model run. This enhancement now has these two properties checked every time the resource constraint is evaluated.

Date Time Column in Trace

This user requested feature adds an additional column in the Trace window which will display the date and time of each action that occurs in the model run. This feature was designed to improve debugging models by adding another way to view time in Trace.

Enhanced Expression Editor

This feature was designed to improve the user experience of entering long expressions into the Expression Editor. The Expression Editor will now be a minimum of three text lines in height and can be gripped and dragged to best accommodate large expressions. Lastly, the expression editor can be pinned and unpinned to the property panel to further allow maximum flexibility. Simio will save the last used size and location of the expression editor.

Up and Down Buttons for States

This user requested feature allows you to move States up and down in the Definitions tab. Moving a State up or down will affect its location in the Watch window which can help with debugging.

Move Leftmost and Rightmost Buttons for Table Columns

This feature was implemented to improve data table structure management. You can use the Move Leftmost or Move Rightmost buttons to move a column all the way to the left or right, in its respective section, i.e., all Properties will stay together, and all States will stay together.

API Support for Object Rotation

This user requested feature allows you to alter the Yaw of an object in a Simio model via the API.

Export Portal Modelling Errors

This user requested feature lets you export all model error messages to a CSV file that automatically opens in order to improve the workflow of Portal modelling. Prior to this Sprint, Portal modelling errors would only appear after loading the model on to Portal, but with this feature, users can see the errors prior to uploading which allows error resolution earlier in the process.

Real Time Clock – RPS and Partner Edition Only

This feature which was designed to assist in orchestrating the real time execution of the system modelled and adds a Real Time Clock button in the Run Speed section of the Run ribbon. When this is toggled on, the simulation clock will advance at the same rate as a real clock if running the model interactively.

WebAPI Data Connector Enhancements

This feature was added to improve the quality of our WebAPI Importer and Exporters by setting the way external data is imported/exported in a standard and proven way by passing parameters and transferring relevant data.

Ability to Delete Object by Right-Clicking

This user requested feature was implemented to improve Simio’s useability. Now, you can right-click on an object or multiple objects and select “Delete” in the drop-down menu to remove an object from the Facility Window.

Additional UTC Functions

This user requested feature provides two new functions that can be used: Run.TimeNowUtc: Returns the current simulation time in hours, expressed as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Run.TimeNowUtcOffset: Returns the offset in hours between the simulation clock’s time zone and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for the current simulation time.

 

New Portal Edition Features

Duration Since Last Import Added for Bound Data Tables within Scheduler Mode

This customer requested feature informs Portal Schedulers the amount of time that has passed since a respective data table has been last imported.

Add Current User’s Name to the List of Assigned Users in Scheduler Mode

This user requested feature was implement for when the current owner of a model assigns the model to a different user and then later wants to take the plan back. This feature also provides clarity by displaying the current user’s name in the assigned user’s dialog.

Ability to Autofit Scheduler Mode Data Table Column Width

This user requested feature allows you to toggle autofitting data within data tables by right clicking on a column header in a respective table in Scheduler Mode.

Date/Time Formatting Enhancement

This feature adjusts the Date/Time formatting within Portal to match your regional browser settings.

Enhanced Dashboards

This feature adds the ability to have Dashboards on Portal that contain data from Periodic Statistics Logs.

Enhanced Scheduler Mode Control Properties Panel

This user requested features was designed to improve distinguishability between different sections of Properties. The Scheduler Mode Properties Panel will now have Categories for better sorting.

Ability to Copy Data from a Grid or Pivot Grid

This user requested feature was implemented to allow grid or Pivot Grid data from Portal to be copied and then later pasted into another field so it can be filtered.

Scheduler Mode Import Status Window

This feature provides an additional drop-down window in Portal Scheduler Mode that shows the status of any tables that are being imported. This automatically refreshing pop-up page will show if each table is complete, cancelled, running, pending, or failed pertaining to its respective import. It will also display the last completion time of the import for each respective table.

Show Filtered Out Items button to Gantt ribbon in Portal Scheduler Mode

This user requested feature allows you to right-click on the Gantt ribbon to 'Show Filtered Out Items' that either turns off all filtered items or shows them in a lighter mode when Gantt is filtered. This feature also further aligns Simio Portal with Portal Desktop.

To learn more about experimentation on the Simio Portal product, contact your Simio representative, Simio authorized partner, or email us at info@simio.com

Show Filtered Out Items button to Gantt ribbon in Portal Scheduler Mode

This user requested feature allows you to right-click on the Gantt ribbon to 'Show Filtered Out Items' that either turns off all filtered items or shows them in a lighter mode when Gantt is filtered. This feature also further aligns Simio Portal with Portal Desktop.

Do you want still more information? Examine the release notes for other recent releases.