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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!

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

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

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.

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

Hi, A Separator is creating copies of the entities that enter it, the number of copies depends on a probability distribution, I want the worker to transport all the entities created from the same parent entity at once. Is this possible? I attach the model for better understanding. Thank you so much! Model.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?

In addition - Based on error message, the destination selection step seems to be trying to use a reference table, (used at source output node), despite the particular node list being specified in the routing logic for the node in question, (i.e. Output@QC2 - see below). Thanks again.

Hi there, I'm very much a novice, but currently leveraging the logic in VisitAllServersInAnyOrder simbit to ensure an entity visits an entity is never reworked more than once. I've updated the model entity with required state variables and created a "MyServer" to create the "HasEntityVisited" etc etc. I'm using the "Candidate.MyServer.HasEntityVisited==False" logic for the selection condition in the output node routing logic. However, whenever I run the model I get the error message "Referenced definition type "MyServer" does not match executing type "BasicNode". I've gone over and over the various elements and compared to the working simbit, but can't identify the issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Garrett

Hi Indsiders, after 30 hours of simulation i get this error message from a DB Write Step: Exception from Step "StepName" execution.Object reference not set to an instance of an object. I dont know why i get this error, cause all entities before where able to execute this step. Is someone able to give me an adivise with this informations ? Beste regards, Benjamin

Hi! can you help me please? In my model I have a server that I want to function as storage, this server is linked to a combiner which will combine the member entities that leave the server with a parent entity that will arrive at it from another node. Each member entity has a state with a unique number linking it to a parent entity (there may be more than one member entity with the same state number). How can I extract from the server only the member entities whose state is equal to the state of the parent entity that arrives at the parentinput of the combiner? Thank you so much! 18.10.spfx

Hi! In my model I have entities called "Pedido" which have a state called "id_del_pedido" which is equal to the ID of the entity. These entities will enter a Separator that will create copies of the entity according to a probability distribution. Since the new entities are copies of the parent entity, they will have the same "id_del_pedido" status as the parent entity. Subsequently, the entities created will enter a Server that acts as a warehouse. This Server is linked to a Combiner, when the parent entity reaches the Combiner's parentinput I want only entities whose "id_del_pedido" is equal to the ID of the entity that reached the Combiner's parentinput to leave the server. This works perfectly in the first Server-Combiner set of my model, but, the Combiner's outputnode is attached to another Combiner and I want to repeat the same activity as in the first Combiner but I get an error that I don't know how to solve. I attach my model so that my problem is better understood. Thank you very much in advance! 18.10.spfx

I'm trying to initialize a model with over a 100,000 entities of the same type. However, when I do so, I get a warning "the number of active entities in the simulation has exceeded 20,000 objects". If I continue, Simio basically crashes after a few minutes. I tried to scale everything down by a factor of 1000, but then when I try to create entities in quantities < 1, it doesn't seem any entities get created. So my question is how do I balance out the need to have 100,000+ entities and the need to be able to create new ones on a much smaller scale (10s for example). Thanks in advance for any help with this.

I am trying to make a routing decision based on the Candidate node's routerequestqueue's summation of the entities user-defined property. If there are different types of entities with ex. different priority levels. I would like the routing process to choose the transfernode which has the smallest total sum of it's entities priority level. the transfernode that needs to be chosen also has a routing group attached to its entity destination type rule where its final machine has 0 buffer and due to a blocked destination rule, there will be a queue build up at the transfernode that needs to be chosen. I have thought about using a state variable for each node and using add-on process each time a unit enters and leaves a node but because the main model has many multiple nodes the node's entity priority sum has to be able to be accessed through the candidate.transfernode._________________. For example during the routing step in the process section, I have candidate.transfernode.destinationroutinggroupname.routerequestqueue which gives me the node's number of units waiting, but i need to be able to access the candidate nodes summed queued property. Is there either a way to directly access this information, have looked at the expressions and having a hard time finding something. failed attempt: candidate.transfernode.destinationroutinggroupname.routerequestqueue.population.defaultentity.priority.summation or is there a way to use the add-on process where i am adding/subtracting the priority levels, but somehow attach it to the candidate.transfernode's property Hopefully this makes sense. If you look at the file, please ignore the upper half and focus on the transfer nodes maintransfer, transfernode1 and transfernode1_1. maintransfer has an entered add-onprocess which is the subject of this question. the route process and it's selection expression is what I'm trying to adjust but find a way to express the candidate transfernodes of transfernode1 and transfernode1_1 (which are part of the XferRouting group). I'd like to choose and compare the total summed priority level of each node's queue. Simple_Routing.spfx

That's because there is a routing table in this case. That's how it was set in this simbit before I made the updates. I also I tried to set the "Routing Table" as the initial sequence for the entity and I'm still getting the same error.

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

I used the "DashboardForScheduling" simbit as an example for this case. For the order that is using "FinishedGoodA" material, I want to change the sequence after the welding process is complete if both shape stations are not available. So, I created an alternative sequence table and referenced in the process logic I created. Whenever this happens, I get same type of error message. Do you think this is happening because the normal routing table is referenced at the source object?

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

Greetings, I would like to know if there is a way to include the volume of the entities into the vehicles capacities ? E.g. let's say that i have 5 entities with different volumes, and the vehicle has the capacity to transport X m^3, how can i include this in simio ? Best regards,

Hello everyone, I have a simple production line of 15 servers, some combiners, nothing too complicated. I need to somehow setup the input buffer at each server to have 1 entity at the start of the simulation and then run it. Or having filled servers with 1 entity at each server. Could anyone please help me and show me how to set it up? I need to start counting the stats once all the workstations are filled, but warmup period does not seem to work for that case, because it destroys the enitities at the servers and starts over. The filled-input-buffer-way looked to me like the easiest solution. But if there is another way, please let me know. Thank you!

I'm interested in calculating a yearly production rate. Essentially I could do this if I ran my simulation for 1 year and looked at the output. The number of entities destroyed by my "completed" sink will be what I'm looking for. How do I determine this value if I'm running for longer than 1 year? For example; If I run for 5 years, and I'm watching my model run, at week 186 I'd like to know how many entities had been destroyed by my "completed" sink between weeks 134 and 186 to determine my yearly production rate.

Please excuse a naive question from a newbie. Building a simulation for material flows in selective mining. Entities, "low_grade" and "high_grade", supplied at different rates by two sources, both go into a server (the mining machine) which passes them to a separator. I want the high_grade entity to go to a processing subsystem, and the low_grade entity to go to backfill (or a waste dump). Do I presume correctly that I should use a Separator for this? If so, how do I set it up to send the two entity types to different destinations ? At present, all seem to be going to the same destination. Instead of having different entities, could I use one entity type and assign grade values according to a probability distribution? If so, how would I then use a separator to send below-cutoff material to backfill?

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, I want to generate one type of product with one interarrival time. I have one source and one model entity. However, this entity can have different lengths following probabilities. Depending on these properties, the processing times at the servers will be shorter or longer. I tried to assign a state to the entity before this entity exits the source so ModelEntity.Length becomes DataLength.prob.randomrow. where DataLength is a table with the different lengths and the probabilities associated with those Lengths. The only thing is that it is a property and not a state, but I do not know how to do it in another way. Afterwards, I have different processing times at the servers depending on the different characteristics of my entity. For example, server1 will have different processing times depending on the length. How can I reference to the good processing time say I have added a column to the table DataLength with the associated processingtimes according to the lengths? Finally, I would also like keep track of those different lengths generated and see what the model produced in the end. Thank you for your help, Emilie