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I had once constructed a model where four servers shared a single resource pool. I had done that by setting their capacities to 0 and forcing them rely on the secondary resources seized from that pool. However, I am seeing that the current version of Simio does not allow that. If the server capacities are set to zero, they don't work at all. In other words, that shared pool can only be used as the source of their secondary resources. My question is, is there another method of forcing the servers seize their primary resources from a shared pool, like in the model of a fast-food establishment where just one employee accepts orders but also prepares fries and drinks and then the same employee delivers the completed orders?

If you haven't already done so, I'd start by reviewing the SimBit ResourceSelectionConcepts. It contains several models that explain different types of resource selection. In particular, I'd suggest a combination of the following approaches: Create a table for each Worker (and/or each Server) where columns in the table represent the constraint or exclusions. For example, you might have a server table with columns for each day, and each column might contain a list of workers who can potentially be used on that day. Use resource lists to select from. possibly with exclusion conditions (maybe referring back to a table) of which resources cannot be used on that server and that day.

Hello everyone, I have a server which can potentially have many entities waiting in the input queue. All these entities have different priorities (as a model entity state variable). I want to retrieve these values to then select the highest one and put it on a status label to track this during the run. Is there an option to do this? Regards, MF

You want to make the servers have a Capacity Type of Schedule and follow the default Standard Week. If you don't want to give them a lunch break, just change the definition of the Standard Day. Leave the default Off Shift Rule of Suspend Processing. The easiest approach for arrivals is to have a Source with an Interarrival time of 4.33 weeks (or 4 weeks) and an integer random distribution for the Entities Per Arrival. Doing a "first Monday" is possible, but a bit complicated because Simio time does not have the concept of Month because months are of varying size. You could probably specify the initial Time Offset to be early in a month, then maybe make the interarrival time be something like DateTime.DaysInMonth(DateTime.Month(Timenow),DateTime.Year(TimeNow)) which would make the next arrival be exactly one month later (same day of the month). When you say you have no buffers, what do you mean? If an entity arrives when all servers are busy, should it be balked (possibly disposed) or should it wait somewhere like on the server input node, on a path or in the Source output node? If the above arrival approach isn't exact enough, you can put exact arrivals in a data table. The arrival time could be specified at any exact datetime you desire and still have the Entities Per Arrival be a distribution.

Hi all! I am simulating a facility with nearly 40 servers, each one starting with some entities in the input node at initialization and having a different capacity. Each server has a 0 input buffer capacity. My entity creation is currently set to having an interarrival time to be 4.33 weeks (1 month) with a random number of entities created. Currently, it runs 24/7 and does not care about the time, but I want to incorporate that. How can I make it so that the entities arrive once a month, let's say the first Monday, at 8am? How can I make it so the servers are only processing between 8am and 4pm Monday - Friday? The work schedule doesn't seem to work for me, but I could be doing it wrong, since I have a 0 input buffer, which I can't change as it's part of my routing logic for overflow. I would be happy with using timers or a process logic if someone can explain it to me. Ideally, the entities only arrive when it's during the working time, and the entities remaining after 4pm are just put on hold until 8am the next day. Thanks in advance!

Ok, I think that I sort it out. I am not very confident of what I do but I think that it works now: I changed the Vehivle "Routing Logic". Idle action: Go to home AND I changed for every server, secondary resources: Earlier it did not work because the vehicle was stuck at the sink waiting for an entity to be available at the source. The idle action for the vehicle was to "Park at home"..

Hello everybody, I'm trying to make this work but I cant Type/Conteiner BinBig BinMed BinSmall Product1 1 1 - Product2 - 1 1 Product3 1 - 1 Product4 1 1 1 I want to make a node where these entities (Products and Bins) are convined in one batch, I try to use a process based in decitions and search.. the file is attached if you wanna take a look on it.. (the product have to be the parent) OptimoContenedores2.spfx

I know it's been a while, but I just came across this question and I'm responding in case this can help someone else. Depending on the problem, modeling nurses as patient capacity might not work; for example, if you need to limit both a nurse's active utilization and the nurse's patient load. Two general approaches exist: Easier: Create two different resources, rename one 'NursesActive' and the other 'NursesPassive.' Set the latter to have n times the capacity of the former, where n is the patient ratio at n:1. Require simultaneous seizure of one of each type of resource when first assigning the patient, and release them separately, re-seizing the former as needed. Harder: Subclass the Resource object and create states to track the patients assigned and a property to define the patient ratio. This approach enables more fine-tuning as necessary.

Updated version with prime on infeed. Filler won't start until you have enough entities on the infeed conveyor. IndexingPlate - V4.spfx

Ok I can do a trace and see what I find. Also, I do have different entity/job types getting processed. In my routing tables, I do have the entities specified in the table. I'm trying to use the "ChooseAlternateSequence" simbit as a reference. Is it possible to do this if you have more than one entity type?

Perhaps its a little late, but attached is a possible solution to your problem. This started out pretty simple. The problem was how to specify which server is serviced by which resource. One way to do that is a table. But since its changing over time I chose to use a time-indexed table, that is a table that knows about time and returns different data at different times. In this case, each row corresponds to 12 hours and each column specifies the resource needed by the respective server. As they say, "the devil is in the detail" and in this case the "devil" is that the specified resource may change between seize and release (e.g., seize at 11:59, release at 12:05). Simio doesn't like that and all the easy options re-evaluate the resource expression on release and so may try to release the wrong resource. One option would have been to create a custom server, but that seems to be overkill. Here is a somewhat simpler approach: 1) Add an entity state named MyResource and assign it at the last possible moment before use. This value will be used only for release. The assigned value is drawn from the table using an expression like Table1.S1Resource.TimeIndexedValue.Object. Note that the .timeindexedvalue indicates to get the value associated with the current time. And the .object at the end is used to tell Simio to return that value as an object not a number. 2) Use Secondary Resources - Other Resource Seizes to seize the name specified in the table using the same expression above Table1.S1Resource.TimeIndexedValue.Object. 3) Use Secondary Resources - Other Resource Releases to release the resource saved in MyResource. TimeBasedWorkerSelection.spfx

Hi I've got a model where the situation is like this: 1. 3 Worker: W1 W2 W3 2. 3 Server: S1 S2 S3 On Monday (work schedule), W1 will work in S1 in the morning and work in S2 in the afternoon. W2 will work on S2 in the morning and S1 in the afternoon. But on Tuesday, W1 will work in S2 in the morning and S3 in the afternoon. W2 will work in S3 in the morning and S2 in the afternoon. The server properties in the secondary resource are "select from the node list." But since the node list for S1 and S2 contain both W1 and W2, and they both have the same hour of working (4+4), when the S1 server seized the resource on Tuesday morning, instead of W1, W2 got allocated instead( W2 should be in S3). I have tried: 1. Using server selection goal to " smallest distance," but it didn't work since the worker will keep swapping the room every day 2. Giving each worker a new initial value and setting the selection goal to "smallest value," but they still have the issue. 3. Try setting idle action for the worker to stay at the node, but sometimes the worker will go to the wrong destination from the first entity, hence no one working in the other room. (2 worker stay together) Is there any method to realize this idea? Thanks in advance

Hello, I'm having strugles trying to configure the setup for the next process: some entities have a diferent processing time and setup time, before to enter to be processed in the workcenters, the workcenter have to be cleaned. I looked the simbit, "ServerWithSequenceDependenrSetup" but I'm confused with the configuration of the processing task. I dont know why we have two lines and o why only one have associeted the change-over matrix.

Hello there, this is my first post here and I hope someone can help me with my problem. I´m quite new to Simio and working on my first project. I have some "return entities" that are considered "bad" at the end of the production. So they will get collected in a server which is used as a storage and get returned to the factory every 24 hours, to get reworked, if there is capacity left. Now, I want to check if there is capacity left in the destinated server and in best case, reserve the needed capacity before, before I route these entities towards it. After the entity arrived in the server, the reserved capacity should get released again. I couldn´t find a good example here in the forum or via google search, as in the SimBits, how to solve this the correct way. Maybe someone here can give me a tip, how to. Thanks in advance. Aljonator

Hello, I have two concerns. In one of my small models I want my transporter to make a round and pick up the entities at the different locations and bring them to a destination (Server1). In addition, I would like that the individual times are measured with a state MyModelEntity.TmpStart and MyModelEntity.Duration, in order to calculate afterwards with a transport cost rate the cost for each individual part. Unfortunately I'm getting desperate with this and getting various error messages, does anyone know how to implement this? Best Regards, Gashi

First of all, Thank you so much for the answer in advance, but could I bother anyone who answers with some example model or picture of the method I am still new to SIMIO, so I am concerned about following the advice correctly. 1) Let's say every day I have X number of people arriving( using distribution to generate numbers outside SIMIO randomly). This is the shop where people visit from 8.00 to 20.00 every day with different visit rates per hour (example as below), and I use X to time to this percentage so I can get the exact number of visits per hour. The problem is I want to make an arrival interval random with some sort of function/distribution or table(excel calculation), not a stable arrival rate. My idea is random from 0 to 1 and gives the random number (Y) to match with X outside SIMIO and put the whole table in, but I wonder, is there any better method than this? 2) The second question is about two entities from different sources, A and B. A and B will go through the same server for three servers, but after server 3, one will go to 4, and one will go to 5. Can you give me any advice on how to do that

Hello everyone, I'm thrilled to share that I've successfully established my simulation model and conducted extensive verification and validation. Now, I'm ready to take the next exciting step: experimentation! While I've made considerable progress, I've encountered a minor setback. It seems that for certain scenarios, the response 'AverageWaitingTimePerTruck' isn't displaying any values. Interestingly enough, this issue only arises when conducting experiments with higher throughput values. The response is defined by averaging the tally statistic 'WaitingTimeBeforeReloading' of the Truck Entities in my model. Have any of you experienced a similar situation before? If so, I would greatly appreciate your insights on resolving this matter. Thank you in advance for your support! Best regards, Toon

Hi all, I am building a simulation of a system with multiple separators which MemberOutput nodes two different routing policies can occur: 1. Standard Policy In the 'Standard Policy', each separator has its dedicated transporter assigned to it and entities arriving at the MemberOutputNode can only select the defined transporter. To this end, a DataTable has been constructed. 2. Power Hour policy In the 'Power Hour Policy', operations are shifted into a higher gear. We select a maximum number of three nearest transporters whose ride request is 0 and include them in the DataTable which specifies the Transporter Selection. Entities arriving at the MemberOutputNode can now request rides from any transporter in the DataTable. I tried to reference to a DataTable called 'TransporterSelection.EPT' in the Transport Logic of each MemberOutput Node. Each value in the EPT column is cross-referencing to a DataTable in which I try to assign the MemberInput Nodes as a Node Reference State Variable of the Transporter (EPT). Is there any way to dynamically assign more (or less for that matter) Transporters to a TransferNode? Hope that anyone knows how to do this! Cheers, Toon

Hello, I am writing my master thesis on production system design with simulation modeling. I have designed two models in Simio - one for current production system and one for optimized one. They are both designed in a correct way and they work as they are supposed to. The only difference between them is in path lengths. The difference between results from optimized and current system should be 3 - 5 % but for some reason I get all of the results identical to the last decimal place after running an experiment. I have attached a picture of my path properites and travel logic of entities. My guess is that for some reason path length is not being considered in the simulation. If anybody has any ideas what could be wrong, i would really appreciate your help.

FullGate version 17 (both side take off).spfx We encounter few problems: 1. Why the plane( entities) only go to one side for waiting to take off but not both side used? 2. Any fomular can i add into the simio? The plane will choose which path to go on the taxiway. Such as the plane on the Node 82 if the taxiway A(path 179) had 3 plane waiting but taxiway B (Path 160) had 1 plane waiting, than the plane will choose taxiway B to wait for take off. Gate.xlsx 30 Departure.xlsx

Well, there are two problems in your model: First, there are many gates that are not following the data table. Second: every gate should be on the Gate table, regardless if they will have flights or not. If not, they will create entities on every single arrival of the departure table. You have many gates that are not included on Gate table.

Hi David, I am trying to get your option 3 to work in my model, as the solutions sounds brilliant. I created an Add-On Process that probabilistically assigns destinations to the Entity and by assigning the destination node to the Entity's State Variable MyDest. In the Routing Logic, I've set the Initial Sequence to the sequence table called Routes that holds all possible routes. However, the entities now only follow the first sequence Routes (Input@LoadingDock9, Input@Sink_HTB), whereas Entities with the destination Input@Sink_RTM should follow the sequence Input@LoadingDock10, Input@Sink_RTM. How can I let the Entity follow a specific sequence from my Sequence Table Routes?

Hi Nicolas, I would investigate the Server property called Initial Capacity. This sets how many units of capacity are going to be available for the Server. You could also change this during the run by Assigning the Server's CurrentCapacity State Variable. I suggest checking out the SimBit titled "Worker Uses Work Schedule". You can access the SimBits in the Support ribbon in Simio. In this SimBit, I recommend changing the Initial Capacity for the Servers. You could set them to '6' or any value. When you run, you will see that the entities only move into the Process Station when they have successfully Seized the Secondary Resource. So even though there is 6 units available only 1 will be use when the Worker is able to process the entity. You can also experiment with giving the Worker a different Initial Number In System value so there can be more Workers. You will still see the same behavior; the number of entities that move into the Server for processing will be the number of Workers that were available to be seized. Happy Modeling! Liz

Hi everyone, I am trying to model entities moving from 10 origins (sources) to 10 destinations (sinks). The entities are simultaneously created according to a certain mix (Entity1 (85%), Entity2 (10%), and Entity3 (5%). However, the number of entities created per event is according to a certain distribution. There is an OD-matrix that captures the number of entities moving from origin to a specific destination. Let's say there are 10 destinations, than the destinations of the Entities are determined according to the OD-matrix: Entity1 and Entity2 can move to any of of the sinks. Entity3 can only move to one specific sink. One solution I came up with was to add weights to Connectors and assign destinations using TransferNodes, but I think that this is very inefficient. I then started to work with DataTables, but I cannot figure out how to probabilistically assign the destinations of the entities. My question is: how to model the probabilistic destination assignment of Entities using DataTables in such a way that it is relatively easy and flexible to add or remove Sources/Sinks? I have added the model for you to see, I hope that you can help me! Many thanks in advance Simple_OD_creation.spfx

I am working on a model of a production line where one of the work stations is a long work table with six workers at it. These workers perform identical assembly tasks and will sometimes leave the table in order to transport finished items to the next step in production. I am currently representing the work table as a single server. I am wondering if it is possible to dynamically change the server's capacity based on how many workers it is able to seize at a given time. Essentially, the server can process with just one seized worker but can seize up to six. Is this something I can implement with Simio's built in functionality, or is it easier just to represent the six spots in the table as individual servers? Thank you!