Simulation - Setting Shift schedules for Human Resources

Just to clarify: Schedule models can be assigned to start events for the purpose of defining process instantiation and to resources for the purpose of defining their time-based availability.

The calendar events in a schedule for process instantiation should only be edited with "Edit --> Process instantiation". Otherwise simulation will not recognize them as process instantiators.

The calendar events in a schedule for defining the availability of resources should only be edited with "Edit --> Date and time".

If you assign a schedule to a resource, then the resource will be available during the times defined by the calendar events in the schedule. If this is a human resource with multiple employees, then all of these employees will be available for the defined times.

So if you want to model a workforce that is organized in shifts, you can define multiple groups (with Group objects). Each group contains employees working in a different shift and therefore gets a different schedule. Functions requiring human work should have all groups assigned so that during each shift somebody can work on them. This should be done with "carries out" connections so that the groups can work alternatively on a function.

Murali,

great to see you using simulation, can you share the objectives and context of the simulation project? very interested to hear about your experience

thanks

Geoff

Hi Ralf,

Many thanks for your help and clarification.

I have tried the method you have indicated and it is working.:)

1. I have created each shift (A,B,C,D..) as org unit (with group object) to main org unit (group object named as  say "XYZ processing team")..
2. Each of these sub org units connected via "Composed of" connector to main group.
3. The main Org unit is group is connected via "Carries out" to the function step.

Hope this is correct.

When I executed simulation,degree of utilisation for the org chart as above..showed different degree of utilisation for each of the shifts (sub org units)..as expected.!!..(each have different # of employees!!).

I have one more querry on tha data analysis out of Simulation.

While "Dynamic Wait time" at the process steps,"Degree of utlisation" for Human resources indicate the bottle necks,..I want to know across diffrent periods of the day..the "gap" between available resourses and work items in process/waiting..for the respective periods.

The obejective is whether I can rearrange shifts and/or allocate addtional resourses to certain "peeks" and bring the flow back to Normal.Inshort I would like to synchronise my resourse avaibility with work items in the queue.

Please help.

Thanks in advance.

K.Murali Krishna

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Mr Geoff,

Thanks for your interest.I have indicated some of the objectives in the query above.

Thanks again.

K.Murali Krishna

I'm not sure how a "'gap' between available resourses and work items in process/waiting" could be calculated. I'd probably use the number of waiting process folders directly. Specifically, I'd look at how the value of the respective attribute changes over time at the functions with high dynamic wait times.

With respect to countering these peeks by reassigning resources to the functions in question, there might be some experimenting required. The software does not support the reassignment of resources during run-time, but one could "activate" and "deactivate" resources throughout the day with the help of a schedule. One will just have to try different configurations to see which works best.

Note that if you do not require resources to be shifted throughout the day and want to know how many employees are required in each shift in order to achieve a certain utilization, throughput time, etc. then conducting a simulation experiment could be interesting. An experiment allows you to vary the number of employees in the different shifts and run a simulation on each of the resulting scenarios.

Hi,

I am looking for a way to simulate a process. Process consist of process steps A, B, C, D & E. Process steps A, B & C are performed throughout the day but process step D is performed only at 3pm every day. Is there a way to simulate this? I have tried using shift calenders, process instantiations or orientation time but I cant replicate the effect. Is there a way to set a time to perform a function? Appreciate any help I can get. Thank you. 

You could use a dummy resource which becomes available at 3 pm every day.

Hi Community,

   I was trying Murali's approach in simulating a BPMN diagram, but stuck as elaborated below.

Below are the steps i did,

1. Created an enterprise BPMN colloboration diagram, with a "Group" lane called registrar

2. Created a org chart and created a "Group" with Registrar(made lane an occurence of this org unit)

3. Created three groups(for three shifts) with "composed of" connection, as Registrar is composed of Registrar shift 1, 2 and 3.

4. Schedules and cost assigned to these shift 1, 2a nd 3 groups.

5. Now when I run simulation, these shift groups are not taken into consideration, only the parent Registrar group in step 2 is taken into consideration.

Can someone help, where I am going wrong.

Thanks,

Subash

Does it work, if you use the connection type "is superior" between Registrar and the lower-level groups? This is the connection type that should be supported by simulation according to the ARIS help topic "Special topics and functions > Simulation > Model > Resources in general > What resource connections exist?".

Hi Ralf,

   It did work with "composed of" connection, but what I missed is assigning org chart to group lanes in E-BPMN, earlier i just had occurence copies of them in process.

Thanks,

Subash

Hi Murali,

I'm trying to do a simulation similar to the one you describe. I have 5 functions that are done by a department whose workers work on shifts. Like this:

Is this the correct way to model it? What I understood of what you explained you did was that you put each schedule on an organizational unit and then linked it, with "composed of" conector, to a main organizational unit. But I can't link these organizational units, with the schedules, to another organizational unit (ARIS won't allow).

How do I do it correctly? Because when I simulate with this model I get pretty distincit degrees of utilization for each oranizational unit and it doesn't seem logical to me.

Thank you in advance.