Model 1b - Time Consuming Sequence Flows

Goals of this lesson

  • Learn when and how to use time consuming sequence links

In functional models it is advantageous to hide trivial actions for clarity. This feature is shown in the picture below: using sequence links with time consumption. For example, this is reasonable for simulating the duration of the daily in-box. You could provide an additional activity, that models the in-box process. But for better clarity and to direct the viewer’s focus to the actual activities you use the sequence link’s duration property.

How-to

1b model
Figure 1. Model 1b - Time consuming Sequence Flows / IYOPRO-Link

Approach

  1. Make sure, you selected the Simulation option from the Property Set drop-down-box.

  2. Click on the specific sequence link (in this case the one named "Mail In-box")

  3. Now click the button right of the empty field of the Duration option under the Optional Properties

  4. The Time Editor will show up

    1. Select the Poisson Distribution

    2. Set a Mean value of 2

    3. Close the Time Editor by clicking OK

  5. Repeat the same procedure with the "Mail sent" edge

    1. Set up an Triangular Distribution with the values: Lower = 1, Upper = 2 and Peak 1.8

The report will show this duration in the activities section and it will provide the same statistical informations.

The General Start Event is used equivalent to the Timer-Start-Event.

Report

See below for the run configuration, which we set up to receive the report statistics from below.

Please refer to the section Experiment Results for more information on the report specific data.

Run configuration

  • Stochastic Seed: 12345

  • Simulation start date: 1/1/2014 12:00:00 a.m.

  • Simulation stop time: 48

  • Simulation stop time unit: Hours

Report statistics

We will only cover the newly added statistics.

  • Have a look at the activity run-times from Figure 2

  • We find, that each of the two time consuming sequence flows are now listed in the activity details

    • This is because the simulation supposes that such a sequence flow is an additional activity

    • Therefore you can find the same statistics as you would find for an activity

model1b activity 1
Figure 2. Activity run-times and waiting times