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Hi everyone, I am working on a model for a project and I need to make so for each server, only one worker will be assigned and work at that server for the workers entire shift. I have uploaded a simplified version of my model. The workers schedules are already in the model. For example: On day 1, worker 1 works all day so they should go to either room1 or room2 (servers) and then only go to that server for the rest of the day. Worker 2 works only in the morning and should take which room/server is not taken by worker 1. Once worker 2's shift is over, worker 3 should come in and take the room that worker 2 left. After the day is over, the room assignment should reset for the next day. Is there a way to do this in Simio? Thanks in advance for any help! WorkerServerModel.spfx

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 am working on a project for class and am having difficulties assigning workers to specific servers depending on what day it is within the simulation. I have 18 workers and 16 servers. Each worker has their own 25 day schedule. On a given day, there is between 5 and 8 workers on shift and each worker needs to be assigned to 2 specific servers and no other worker should go to those servers on that day. However, due to the different schedules, a given worker will not always be assigned the same rooms they were assigned the previous day. Is it possible to assign each worker a specific server by day? Or is there another way that this might be possible? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

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

Thank you for the quick and detailed response! I see the error I was making with work schedule and have tested it on one server, it seems to work as intended. Since each of my servers have a different capacity, would I need to create a unique work week and unique day type for them all? Or is there a quicker work around? The manual inputs for the date time are a great work around, I'm only modeling for a few years so I don't mind inputting a few dates. What I mean by there being no buffers is that no server can have a queue. I used a list for selecting the destination on the output node of each source (total of 8 ) where it's a hierarchy. It can go to a select number of servers and if all of them are full it goes to a dummy server of infinite capacity that exits the items to an overflow sink.

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!

Hello, I am trying to use git to track changes when working on Simio projects collaboratively. For this I am saving the project as *.simproj and the resulting file and folder structure looks good. But there are too many time stamp changes that make it difficult to track the "important" changes. For example, I only changed the location of the DefaultEntity in the model and hit save. The resulting changes are shown in the attached screenshot, with 20 files shown as changed. The main changes are related to the time stamp. Is there a way to configure Simio such that fewer files will be affected by each change? Thank you. Annika

Yes, and it did not work for me. The object-reference (server) property created (and named as "exampleVariable") does not appear in the property window of server objects.

Hello everyone, I am trying to add a new property for a Server object, which would be a string. For instance, the property needs to be something like "Type of Patient" (that each server can attend). I created a property within the Server's subclass, but it does not work. ¿How can I define a new property for a certain object? Thanks in advance, Marcel Favereau

Hi, there is a simple approach you can use. Use Connectors between the queue server and the desks. At Buffer Logic of the Desks, change the Input Buffer Capacity to 0. Create a List with the Input nodes of the seven Desks. On the Output of the queue server change Entity Destination Type to Select From List and the goal to Smallest Value. Keep the default expression. It should work fine.

I'm making a call center simio model. The 7 types of calls are generated at sources and then move down a path to a server. This server represents a queue that is formed at the call center. After the queue server the calls are transferred to 1 of 7 desks (which are represented by a server) where a call agent is working. How do I make it so the calls do not go to one of the server desks until a desk becomes available. As it currently stands the calls go right through the queue server and build up at some desks even if there are free desks available.

Happy new year! One thing that I noticed is that with this model, the server never have a state of "blocked". I increased the processing time of Server2 and added a status pie to Server1. The server 1 is either Processing or starved, but never blocked according to the pie. But it should be blocked part of the time since I increased the processing time of Server2 to force this. It looks like the Server1 only accepts a new item to process if the path between Server1 and Server2 has room for at least one more vehicle. So the time that it should be blocked is considered as part of the "Starved" instead. I tried to figure out why this happens without success. Anyone knows why this happens? I attach the model to the post. Thank you! Input Server1 not blocked.spfx

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 all I am relatively new to Simio and DES. I am trying to model a pallet conveyor. It is a closed loop conveyor. I use the "vehicle" as the pallet that loops around the conveyor. At the source the part (default entity) is loaded on the pallet. At the sink the part is unloaded. The problem that I am encountering is that the vehicles from time to time pile up at the sink, then after a certain amount of time they continue back to the starting point "Source1". This happens more the more I increas the "initialnumber in system" of vehicles The transfer-in Time for the sink is set at 0. At the model trace I read this for the "Input@Sink1" : "the in Token waiting at VisitNode step for '1' other processes to complete." I would apreciate any advice. Many thanks! Vehicle_stuck_at_sink.spfx

Hello, I am working on a Demo Model and I would like to use the Console feature. The Console has a lot of "pros" because you can decide whether to display/hide KPIs, place buttons...However, it has a couple of "cons" that make its usage less friendly: Console Size cannot be pre-defined. Every time that the Open Console is clicked, the console will be opened in a different place and with a small size, which forces to manually move it and resize it so that everything can be seen more clearly. Gridlines cannot be hidden. I have tried to disable them in the section of view - gridlines, but it has not been possible. Any of you know if these two features actually exist and it's me that I do not know them? Attached there are a couple of screenshots of what I mention and the model itself (DemoModel should be run and right click open console). ConsoleIssue.spfx

Rotary filler head object that represents animation of bottles rotating around a cylinder as they get filled. You can use a regular server if animation is not required. This object lets you define the number of filling heads, direction of rotation and rate (Bottles Per Minute), pitch of fillers heads (in degrees) and ReleaseType (Release type represents where the bottle will be released at 180 Degree from the start point or 270 degree). As seen in the picture above, Arrow represents the starting point. Users can also specify if they need fine control over the rotation of the filler heads. If fine control is set to True filler head will pitch by 1 degree. This provides smoother animation.Users will have to make sure the pitch is set correctly in relation to the release type if Fine Movements are set to False. With FineMovements set to False filler heads movement is equal to pitch defined. Users can also specify failure rate in similar way to server or other standard Simio objects. This object has not been extensively tested and it can be further customized to requirements. IndexingPlate - V4.spfx

Hi Fabian, I see two (or more) possible alternatives for solving this. Assuming that the box only receives one type of entity you can: 1. Create a state variable (for example st_CurrentBoxType) and every time an entity enters the combiner you assign the entity type to this state variable. This way, one the box is completed and exits the combiner you will be able to assign it the st_CurrentBoxType. 2. The other way is to execute a search step once the box is full. You can use "ModelEntity.BatchMembers.FirstItem" as match condition to locate the first batched entity, then in the found branch use an assing step to assign the ProdType from the found entity I'm sure there are a lot of ways of doing that... hope this helps saludos

Hi I have an entity that is moved through the network via vehicles. The vehicle will drop of the entity at the first server which then gets processed through two servers. I would like to use the vehicle that dropped off the entity at the Input to the first server to be used to pick up the next entity at the output of the second server. Is there a way to save the exact Vehicle that was used and specify that as the Vehicle to use at the second pick up point? Hopefully to a global variable and not to the entity (in my actual model, the entity going in to Server 1 is not the next entity coming out of Server 2). At the moment I am using 'Reserve Closest' as the reservation method at Server 2. I know that is incorrect, but I'm not sure how to setup this up using the other methods. In the attached model, process works for the first entity, but does not for the second entity onwards. Due to other limitations in the model, I need to have the Vehicles to 'Remain in Place' during idle. Thanks in advance for the help. SpecificVehicle.spfx

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'm trying to make a model with three servers. Everyone uses different Workers type and have different operation time per entity (no problem in these points). The difficult part is the next, every work center (server) has a different setup and changeover, and both happens without the presence of the entity. I mean the setup of some servers starts when the entity is created, (before the arrival to that server), and after the operation the changeover has to be done, in both cases we need to use or assing a worker. How can I do that?

This helped in some applications, especially use cases where multiple servers are in series and I need the operator to focus on the start or end of the process. Thanks! However, when servers are in parallel the operator tends to run back and forth between them. If I were to assign a higher priority to one line, the worker would focus on that line only. i.e. if he empties the que of parts in the input buffer of Server 1, he goes down to work on only 1 part at Server2 before going right back to Server1. Rather, I'd like for the operator to clear all parts in the que at Server1 before walking down to Server2 and vice-versa. I've tried doing this through process logic however I get stuck trying to evaluate which server the worker is supporting.