Simulacian control panel

In order to simulate a business process you need to define simulation details like available and required resources, duration of tasks/sub-processes, instances of pools/lanes and inputs. All these information can be defined in simulacian control pane, which is a pane that display at the bottom of diagram, important for adjusting any settings related to simulacian. The panel will be updated base on your selection in active diagram. Besides setting simulacian details, start/pause of simulation can also be done in the panel.

Opening simulacian control panel

To open the simulacian control panel, right click on thebackground of business process diagram that you want to simulate and select Show Simulacian Control Panel from the pop-up menu.

Open simulacian control panel

NOTE:

You can open simulacian control panel only for diagram that has selected Simulacian as diagram type. To check/edit diagram type, right click on the background of business process diagram and select Diagram Type from the popup menu.

Overview of simulacian control panel

Common

An overview of simulacian control panel

No.	Name	Description
1	Profile	To create a new profile for simulacian, select Configure Profile... from the drop-down menu and name the newly created profile in the Configure Profile dialog box.
2	Start / Pause	Click to start simulation when paused or stopped, base on the resource, duration and input settings, or to pause a simulation when it is playing.
3	Stop	Stop a simulating business process.
4	Clock	Displays the time elapsed from the beginning of simulation until the current moment. It is for reflecting the duration of the execution of business process, and is based on the selection of time scale.
5	Time scale	Control the speed of simulation. For example, a selection of 10 mins scale simulates the business process in speed 10 min per second.
6	Current unit	Click to select the current unit, such as US Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar and Yen, for the consumption during simulating.
7	Simulacian charts	Click to display a new window that display the completion, resource usage and queue time charts base on the settings of resource, duration and input. You can treat it as a chart form of simulation outcome.
8	Close	Click to close the simulacian control panel. You can open it again by right clicking on the business process diagram and selecting Show Simulacian Control Panel from the popup menu.

Description of simulacian control panel

When selected pool/lane

An overview of simulacian control panel while selected pool/lane

No.	Name	Description
1	Instance	When you model a business operation in business process diagram, you use pools and lanes to represent participants and sub-participants of the process, such as Client and Receptionist. No matter how many actual participants are there, you will still use a single pool (or lane) to represent all of them. For example, you will draw a pool Receptionist to represent all receptionists instead of drawing 5 pools for representing the fact that there are 5 receptionists. Here the Instance field let you set the number of instances of selected pools or lanes. If there are 5 receptionists, enter 5 for instance of pool/lane Receptionist. Provided that there are sufficient resources for performing jobs, the number of instances affects the performance of process - The more instances, the more efficient. During process improvement, you can adjust the instance to evaluate the impact of increasing or decreasing the number of staff to handle certain job.
2	Show inputs	Inputs are the expected way of executing a business process during simulacian. Click Show Inputs to list the inputs, and add/remove inputs in further.
3	Available resources	The table of available resources list the resources needed by the business process. For example, a process of body checking has resources X-Ray room and reception counter. Each resource has a name, a type and its amount.
4	Add available resource	Click to add an available resource by giving its name, selecting/entering its type and setting its amount.
5	Remove available resource	Select an available resource and click this button to remove it.

Description of simulacian control panel while selected pool/lane

When selected flow objects

An overview of simulacian control panel while selected flow object

No.	Name	Description
1	Duration	The time the selected flow object needs to take to process and complete a job. The 4 boxes d, h, m and s mean day, hour, minute and second, respectively. For example, it takes five 5 minutes to present a report to client in a body check operation, set the business task Present Report's duration to be 5 m, meaning 5 minutes. The duration setting affects the performance of process - The less time needed, the more efficient. However, do not forget that the less time it takes to complete a task may affect the quality of work. During process improvement, you need to keep the balance between efficiency and quality of work, and adjust the duration accordingly.
2	Cost	The cost the selected flow object needs to consume to process and complete a job. The current unit you selected in common control pane will be shown in here as the unit of cost. For example, you select US dollar in current unit, it will be shown USD in here.
3	Show inputs	Inputs are the expected way of executing a business process during simulacian. Click Show Inputs to list the inputs, and add/remove inputs in further.
4	Required resources	The resources the participant needed in order to complete a job when processing the selected flow object. The Resource column shows the names of resources. The Amount column shows the number of resource needed to use in completing the task per participant. For example, to present report to client, you need one resource Meeting Room, and one resource Projector.
5	Add required resource	Click to add the resource the participant needed in order to complete a job when processing the selected flow object. Make sure you have available resources defined in order to select a required resource. Also note that you cannot set an amount that exceed the amount set in available resource. For example, if you have 6 available projectors (resource), the maximum of projector a flow object can require is from 0 to 6.
6	Remove required resource	Select a required resource and click this button to remove it.
7	Available resources	The table of available resources list the resources needed by the business process. For example, a process of body checking has resources X-Ray room and reception counter. Each resource has a name, a type and its amount.
8	Add available resource	Click to add an available resource by giving its name, selecting/entering its type and setting its amount.
9	Remove available resource	Select an available resource and click this button to remove it.

Description of simulacian control panel while selected flow objects

When selected diagram background / showing inputs

An overview of simulacian control panel while selected diagram background or showing inputs

No.	Name	Description
1	Inputs	Inputs are the definitions of how to execute a business process during simulation. An input consists of a selection of possible execution path formed by flow objects in diagram, with the number of instances, which represents the number of time the path will be executed at a specific instant. For example, if you want to simulate the case that there are 10 clients needed to perform body checking in a business process of body checking, to see if the process can handle this situation well, you will add an input Performing body check, with 10 as number of instances.
2	Add input	Click this button to add an input with name and number of instances.
3	Remove input	Select an input and click this button to remove it.
4	Path	The flow objects involved in an input. If there is a gateway in your diagram, you need to make a decision to the outgoing path of the gateway object.
5	Highlight in diagram	Check this button to make the diagram highlight the path involved in the input selected in Inputs table.
6	Available resources	The table of available resources list the resources needed by the business process. For example, a process of body checking has resources X-Ray room and reception counter. Each resource has a name, a type and its amount.
7	Add available resource	Click to add an available resource by giving its name, selecting/entering its type and setting its amount.
8	Remove available resource	Select an available resource and click this button to remove it.

Description of simulacian control panel while selected diagram background or showing inputs

When simulating

An overview of simulacian control panel while simulating

No.	Name	Description
1	Pause	To pause a simulation temporarily.
2	Stop	To stop simulating the business process.
3	Clock	To display the time elapsed from the beginning of simulation until the current moment. It is for reflecting the duration of the execution of business process, and is based on the selection of time scale.
4	Inputs	A list of inputs with their completeness throughout the simulation. The Processing column shows the jobs under processing by the simulating process. The Instances column shows the amount of non-completed jobs. It should keep decreasing, and become 0 at the end of simulation.
5	Resources	A list of resources with the status of consumption throughout the simulation. The Processing column shows the amount of resources be consumed by the simulating process. The Instances column shows the total amount of resources. You can observe this table to study the current resource allocation.
6	Results	A list of completed inputs. The Instances column shows the amount of completed inputs.

Description of simulacian control panel while simulating