Simulation

Arena

Burak Büke

School of Mathematics
University of Edinburgh

3 November 2014
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Running Arena
Arena runs on a Windows machine
It is stored under Programs>Rockwell Software>Arena
It may take some time to start running
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The Arena software

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Basic Definitions - 1

Entity: These are what will be flowing through our system.

Entrying at a point
Leaving at another
Examples
Customers at a bank (come, get served and leave)
Products at a manufacturing plant
Resources: These are things that are there in the system
Numbers may be constant or change according to a schedule
Used by entities (but not consumed!)
Examples
Machines in a service or a process (ATM, Sewing Machine,
Benches, etc.)
Workers
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Adding a Module to Your Model

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Create Module

Create module is the entry point of the entities

You can have different create modules for different types of
entities
To open the dialog box, just double click on the module
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Create Module

Create module is the entry point of the entities

You can have different create modules for different types of
entities
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Create Module
If the interarrival times exponential w/ constant rate⇒
Random(Expo)
If the interarrival times exponential w/ time-dependent rate⇒
Schedule
We will see how to define schedules later
If the interarrival times are deterministic⇒ Constant
If interarrival times follow another distribution⇒ Expression
We can define complicated expressions
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Create Module

When we choose expression we can choose from a wider

variety of interarrival time distributions
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Create Module
We can build complicated expressions
To open expression builder, right click on the “Expression”
and choose “Build Expression”
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Create Module
Suppose we want to set interarrivals to sum of two random
variables:
exponential(3)
triangular(2,4,8)
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Create Module

Just choose from random distributions

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Process Module

This module models delay and activities in the system

Delay refers to both delaying entities and resources
Examples of use
Withdrawal of money from ATM
Entity: customer
Resource: ATM
Call handling at a call center
Entity: Customers
Resource: Agents (Representatives)
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Process Module
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Process Module
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Process Module
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Process Module
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Process Module

Action is the most important part of process node!

Delay: Only delays the entity
Seize-Delay: Seizes the resource you specify and delays both
entity and the resource (does not release the resource after
entity leaves)
Seize-Delay-Release: Seizes the resources you specify, delays
both entity and the resources and releases resources upon
departure from this module
Delay-Release: (Assumes entity arrives with a resource already
seized), delays both entity and the resource and releases the
resource upon departure
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Process Module

Example: Withdrawing money from ATM

Upon arrival customer seizes the resource (ATM)
Both customer and ATM is delayed (during withdrawal of
money)
Upon departure customer leaves the module and resource
(ATM) is released for use by others
Hence, we need to choose seize-delay-release!
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Process Module
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Process Module
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Process Module
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Dispose Module

The point of exit for entries

Dialog only specifies the name
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Setting the Number of Available Resources

How do we increase the number of available resources in the
system? (e.g., two ATMs are available)