Process Simulation

If you don't care about the sequence of EPCs, you can simply set a frequency on each start event or assign a schedule with an instantiation pattern, select all EPCs in the Explorer and then start a simulation run.

If the sequence of EPCs is significant, you'll have to make higher-level EPCs (similar to the VACDs you have) which "call" the lower-level EPCs via assignments. The instantiation frequencies or patterns will then have to be set at these higher-level EPCs.

Thanks a lot Ralf.

The sequence does matter in my case. So the high-level EPCs will probably need to be created. I'm facing a few other problems though.

1. Tokens (Folders) aren't being passed on to processes that are being called from another higher level process through a process interface. This is despite the assignment for the interfaced process being done correctly.

2. The persons/organizational units are working through the day, whereas I need them to work a 9-5 shift. How would I do that?

ad 1)

There could either be a problem with how the assignment is modeled or the assigned models are not included in the simulation.

Regarding the former possibility: An assignment is not modeled with a process interface. Process interfaces are used to connect parts of a process on the same modeling level. In contrast, assigned models are used to express the details of the functions they are assigned to on a lower modeling level. For an assignment to be methodologically correct, the assigned model has to contain occurrence copies of the events which are located before and after the function it is assigned to as the start and end events of the process respectively.

Regarding the latter possibility: The simulation options contain settings which deal with the inclusion of models. For assigned models to be included, the setting "Assigned processes, up to assignment level" should be checked and set to the desired number of levels.

ad 2)

You can assign Schedule models to resources which act as shift calendars. Check the ARIS help (menu "Help > Help topics") for details.

Thanks Ralf. It really helped. Now I have a high-level EPC that has functions with EPCs lower level EPCs assigned to them. There is just one more issue. Some of the larger processes have been broken into 2-3 smaller EPCs connected using process interfaces (say A1, A2 and A3). The tokens aren't being passed through (handed over?) from A1 to A2 through the process interface. When I run all 3 EPCs (A1,A2 and A3) together, they run in parallel. Is there a way of handling this?

Process interfaces at the end or start of a process (part) are ignored by the simulation. The crucial parts are the end and start events. The end event of the preceding process and the start event of the following process have to be occurrence copies of the same event definition.

Thanks Ralf. I have now been able to simulate connected processes through the the start/end events. I have a few other issues now;  1. Process B follows Process A through a common start/end event, but I want to run process B in a batch and only on Fridays, whereas process A is adhoc and can be run at anytime. How do I schedule process B to run only on Fridays (process instantiation/schedule are ineffective, as process B follows from process A).?    2. Given a shift calendar (with holidays included) defined, how do I make process instantiations happen on the previous business day, if the process instantiation day (say end of the month) falls on a weekend?

ad 1) You could add an XOR rule after the start event of process B as well as an additional start event which leads to this XOR rule. At the additional start event you can define a separate instantiation pattern.

ad 2) Unfortunately instantiation patterns in ARIS Business Simulator are not sophisticated enough at the moment to support this.

Great topic. Although BPMN doesn't officially account for a hierarchy, BPMN models still can be created in a hierarchical structure.

How would a simulation been possible with BPMN models?

Best Regards

Klaus

I now have multiple EPCs (~250). Is there a restriction on the number of EPCs that can be simulated simultaneously?

There is no pre-defined limit with respect to the number of models which can be simulated simultaneously, but memory could be a limiting factor.

Thanks Ralf.

The problem I'm facing currently is that when I load upto 100 EPCs each the simulation works fine. But if I run all of them together ~250, the simulation options (play, pause, stop) etc. get disabled. Could you please suggest a possible solution to this?

And there is no error message? Perhaps there are hints in the log files about what is going wrong.

In any case it would be good to contact ARIS support. If there actually is a bug in the simulation they can help to get it resolved.