Quick Build

The Quick Build feature is a great starting point to help you build a simulation quickly and easily. If you have data, you can use Quick Build to quickly turn it into a working simulation and gain insight.

Open Quick Build by navigating to File > New > Quick Build Simulation.

Quick Build only requires 5 steps to build your simulation: Setup, Arrivals, Resources, Activities and Routing. We will go through each step below.

The Setup step is used to enter information such as your industry (this tailors some of the images used), the main question you want this simulation to answer and your run settings.

See: Clock Settings

Enter your arrivals, you can add/remove columns as needed. If an Arrival Planner does not align with your requirements, you can switch to use one of the other arrival disciplines after the simulation has been built. You can also access further options in the Arrival Planner after completing Quick Build.

See: Arrival Planner

In the Resource step, you can add all the resources required at different steps in your process. A Resource can be a human resource, tool, pallet, drill, or anything that is required for a specific step to process. You can set how many of each resource type are available and the percentage of their time that is available to work. For example, you may reduce the availability of a human resource to account for breaks.

See: Resources and Resource Availability

Next, list all the steps in the process – in Simul8 each step is represented as an Activity. The two main parameters we need to set for Activities are timing and routing. We will set the timing in this step and the routing in the next.

In Quick Build, we set the Average Process Time for each Activity (assumes variability is normally distributed with a Standard Deviation set to 25% of the mean). More process time options are available outside of Quick Build.

Machines are also rarely run with 100% efficiency, we can account for breakdowns, maintenance etc in Simul8. Enter the efficiency value into the table. If you are unsure, leave it at 100% for now – all settings can be edited later.

We also need to assign which Resources are required at each step. Double click on each cell in the table to update. You can assign multiple Resources to each Activity.

Lastly, we can set a capacity on the Queue that feeds each step if needed. By default, there will be a Queue added in-between each Activity. This is good practice in Simul8 and is a great way to visualize bottlenecks and gather information on how work is flowing through our system.

See: Activities

Routing work through your system can be as simple as a straightforward linear flow or it can require complex logic. However work flows through your system, Simul8 has a feature to simulate it. In Quick Build, we keep things simple. Add each connection between Activities as a line in the routing table.

A couple of rules:

• Simul8 will attach all Activities without a preceding Activity to the Start Point.
• Simul8 will complete all Activities without a following Activity with an individual End Point.

If you leave the whole Routing table blank, each Activity will route out from the same Start Point and flow into their own End Point.

See: Quick Build Routing

For more general Routing guidance and other options available see Routing Out and Routing In

Click Next and then Build Simulation to complete Quick Build. From here you can run your simulation and start analysing your process. You can also begin to add further detail if required.

If you need to go back and make any changes to your input information, you can Reopen Quick Build using the button on the Home tab.

If you have changed the position of any of the simulation objects after the initial build, you may want to unselect the option to ‘Reposition existing objects’ before rebuilding.

Any settings or parameters you changed in the simulation that are not part of the Quick Build tool will not be changed if you use the rebuild option. Any that are controlled (for example an additional Resource you added) will be visible in the Quick Build menus.

• Quick Build Routing