Model 7c - Multiple Parallel Activity
How-to
In Model 7c we will introduce you to the multiple parallel activity. This kind of activity is being executed x times simultaneously. The number of parallel instances is determined by an expression which must evaluate to an integer.
Approach
-
We again initialize a variable called x with a value of 4 in the first activity
-
At the second activity we select the item Parallel from the drop-down-box Multiple Instances
-
We now enter the above defined variable’s name (x) into the expression field of the Number of Parallel Instances property under Must-Have Simulation Parameters
You can also enter an expression like Result=(x+4);(which will result in 8 parallel instances) or just enter a number
-
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: 240
-
Simulation stop time unit: Hours
Report statistics
-
Though the parallel activity is being executed 4 times in each process instance, you will note that this multiplicity does not impact on the processing time
-
This is what we expected, because the activities are executed parallel
-
-
Try to change the parallel activity’s duration to a non-constant stochastic distribution like the normal distribution
-
You will notice that the statistics will not be that obvious anymore
-
The parallel activity instance with the longest duration will make the hardest impact on the processing time
-
