Author Topic: BPMN simulation (Read 9241 times)

Lien Deboosere · « **on:** November 26, 2015, 12:35:27 am »

What is the best approach to calculate for example the total time and cost of executing a business process modeled in BPMN?
Every activity should have an associated time and cost, same for the connectors.

Is there a way to use tagged values in simulations?

thanks !
Lien

Eve · « **Reply #1 on:** November 26, 2015, 08:35:18 am »

Is this video about Business Process Simulation the feature you're after?

It's not ready yet, but should be very soon.

Lien Deboosere · « **Reply #2 on:** December 04, 2015, 01:24:50 am »

It is exactly what I am looking for !

Is it included completely in the version EA 12.1 (build 1224) ?

Eve · « **Reply #3 on:** December 04, 2015, 08:33:51 am »

The simulation requires a separate add-in. You can now download a 14 day trial. See http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/mdg/bpsim/

Lien Deboosere · « **Reply #4 on:** December 05, 2015, 01:49:06 am »

Thanks !

However, when I try to go the trial version, I get this error:

The requested URL /bin/mdgbpsim.msi was not found on this server.

Eve · « **Reply #5 on:** December 08, 2015, 02:54:34 pm »

The download link has been corrected. My apologies for the difficulty.

GEC · « **Reply #6 on:** December 10, 2015, 03:26:13 am »

Thanks for enabling this try-out.

However still a question on the composition of the timing: one can enter different parameters like TransferTime, QueueTime, WaitTime ... some are 'Value adding', others are 'Non-Value adding'. For Value Stream Mapping it is essential to keep the difference between both when simulating a total flow. However in the BPSim simulator, all of them seem to be added to 'ProcessingTime'.
Is there a way to still see the contribution of each Timing composition in the simulation of a total flow?

Eve · « **Reply #7 on:** December 10, 2015, 09:22:13 am »

As far as I know, Enterprise Architect's display of the results is faithful to the results we are given. (ie. There's a lot of room for us to make it more friendly.)

It looks like the simulation engine doesn't know what to do with the different time values.

Edit - Confirmed through the documentation for the simulation engine. It only tracks processing time and trigger count for activities/tasks. My recommendation is to send in the request for the additional information you would like to track and we'll pass it on.

GEC · « **Reply #8 on:** December 11, 2015, 10:17:12 pm »

Hi Simon,

it would be useful to see the processing time split up throughout the simulation in so called 'Value adding' and 'Non value adding' timing. This roughly comes down to the same categories as referred to in the EA help as 'Duration' and 'Lag Time' respectively and keeping these separate would be sufficient for the purpose. Lowering the 'Non value adding' time is one of the lean techniques to optimise your process, as part of the VSM (Value Stream Mapping). The 'Non value adding' time will typically exist in stock places in between activities. In VSM there is a symbol for that, in BPMN not really, but here we can work around, eg like using a different activity.
Alternatively it would make sense to enable also 'time' parameters to be hooked on the sequenceflow.

Showing these VA and NVA values in the activity (and sequenceflow) on the BPMN diagram itself would be a bonus.

Hope you can work with this and this was entered in the right channel here. If not we can discuss offline through email or phone.

Best regards,
Geert.

GEC · « **Reply #9 on:** December 23, 2015, 08:23:23 pm »

Extra question: when will it be possible to purchase the BPsim simulator?
The trial period has passed and I would like to purchase to be able to continue, but there is no further link on the purchase page:
http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/mdg/bpsim/purchase.html

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