This dialog contains tabs for specifying various settings used by the model at simulation time.
Run Settings
Simulation Period
The Simulation Period specifies how long your simulation will run. It is given in calendar and time format. Choose an appropriate time span to see all aspects of your system.
Warmup Every Replication
Sets whether or not you wish to have a warmup period for every replication. If this box is not checked, there will only be a warmup period for the first replication.
Reset Random Number Streams
Resets the random number streams between replications. Normally, this option should not be selected.
Reset System
Resets the system to the initial conditions before each replication.
Verify Model on Run
Runs a verification process on the model before the simulation starts. This makes sure all pads are connected.
Number of Replications
Since statistical variation is built into SIMPROCESS, it is a good idea to run the simulation more than once for statistical accuracy. The Number of Replications is the number of times the simulation will be run.
Warmup Length
The Warmup Length is the amount of simulation time that will elapse before statistical data is collected. You might want to have a warmup period if you are worried about transient effects, and wish the simulation to reach a steady state before collecting data.
Warmup Time Unit
The Warmup Time Unit is the time unit that applies to the Warmup Length.
Simulation Time Unit
The Simulation Time Unit is the default time unit for the simulation clock. The default is Hours. This should be adjusted larger or smaller if the time units for delays within the model are much larger (e.g., Years) or much smaller (e.g., Nanoseconds) than Hours. Adjusting the Simulation Time Unit helps reduce rounding errors in converting delay times to the time unit of the simulation clock. Also, the Simulation Time Unit is the default unit for the X axis of Real-Time Plots.
RMI Host
This indicates the host on which SPServer will be located if your model has an External schedule defined and you have purchased the plug-in to allow remote processing. It defaults to "localhost".
RMI Port
This indicates the TCP port to use on the host above. The default value is 1099, which is the default port used by the Java RMI Registry. If this value is unchanged, no port will actually be used (which will let the RMI Registry program assume its default behavior). Otherwise, the value entered here (which must be in the range 1024 to 65535) will be used to communicate with the RMI Registry on the specified host.
Cost Periods
The Cost Periods tab is used to set the cost periods for activity based costing calculations.
Debug Traces
The Debug Traces tab is used to create file traces of entity actions for debug purposes.
Expression Options
The Expression Options tab offers controls for two Expression statements: OUTPUT and BREAKPOINT. The OUTPUT statement displays information in the SIMPROCESS Expression Output Dialog, and the BREAKPOINT statement pauses the simulation and displays simulation information. Both statements are especially useful for debugging. See Chapters 3 and 10 and Appendix F of the SIMPROCESS User's Manual for more information.
For controlling the behavior of the OUTPUT statement:
Suppress Dialog
When checked, the dialog normally displayed during simulation with the results of any of OUTPUT statements will be suppressed. This provides a convenient way of disabling all OUTPUT statements in the completed model without needing to locate each one and modify the expression in which it appears.
Send Output to File
When checked, the input field will be active and must contain a file name. The file will be created in the model's directory, so it must not contain any path information and must be legal for the platform on which SIMPROCESS is running. Checking this item will cause the output from these statements to be written into the named file, even if the dialog is not suppressed.
When SIMPROCESS runs a simulation without a GUI, it behaves as if Suppress Dialog were checked and the setting of Send Output to File will be respected. However, if neither of these items are checked when running in this manner, the output from any of these statements will go into the appropriate log file. When run via SPRunSimulation (see Appendix J of the SIMPROCESS User's Manual), this will be the simprocess.log file. When run via OptQuest for SIMPROCESS, this will be the optQuest.log file. When run via the SIMPROCESS Dispatcher, this will be the Dispatcher.log file. See other documentation for more details on these capabilities.
For controlling the behavior of the BREAKPOINT statement:
Enable BREAKPOINT Statements
When checked, BREAKPOINT statements in Expressions will execute when encountered. This will result in the simulating pausing at that point and a BREAKPOINT Analyzer dialog being shown where information about the current state of the simulation can be viewed. See Appendix F of the SIMPROCESS User's Manual for a detailed description.
Time Server
This tab is used to indicate whether a TimeServer will be used to manage simulation time and, if so, to provide the information necessary to communicate with one. See Chapter 3 of the SIMPROCESS User's Manual for more information on these settings.
Use Time Server
Check this to indicate that the model will communicate with a TimeServer to manage simulation time externally. Doing so enables the following additional fields for entry of required information.
IP Address
The default value in this field is localhost and indicates that the TimeServer application is expected to be on the same system where SIMPROCESS is running. The value entered here must be an Internet Protocol (IP) address or a valid host name which will identify the system where the TimeServer application can be found.
Port (1024 - 65535)
The default value for this field is 26100 and indicates the TCP port on which the TimeServer application is expected to be communicating.
Group
This is the name of a defined simulation group which this model will join. Groups are defined as part of the TimeServer application's configuration. See SIMPROCESS TimeServer.pdf in the timeserver directory for more information.
Player Name
This is the name by which this model will be known within the Group. Player names must be unique within a Group.
Synchronize to Nearest
When selected, a list of supported time units will become enabled, defaulting to Hours. Using this setting can sometimes help to improve simulation performance by rounding the simulation time advancement requests up to the next higher integer number of the selected time units, potentially reducing the amount of time spent waiting for time advancement approvals and resulting in fewer delays. Any time unit can be selected, but it is generally recommended that the unit chosen be at least as large as the simulation's own time units set elsewhere on this dialog. Best results can often be obtained when all players in the same simulation group use the same time synchronization strategy. See Chapter 3 of the SIMPROCESS User's Manual for additional discussion of this setting.