ATTENTION

This FlexSim Community Forum is read-only. Please post any new questions, ideas, or discussions to our new community (we call it Answers) at https://answers.flexsim.com/. Our new Question & Answer site brings a modern, mobile-friendly interface and more focus on getting answers quickly. There are a few differences between how our new Q&A community works vs. a classic, threaded-conversation-style forum like the one below, so be sure to read our Answers Best Practices.


flexsim.com

Go Back   FlexSim Community Forum > FlexSim Healthcare (HC) > FlexSim HC: Q&A
Downloads

FlexSim HC: Q&A Questions about FlexSim Healthcare

  #1  
Old 08-27-2013
Robert Rodgers Robert Rodgers is offline
Flexsim User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 6
Downloads: 0
Uploads: 0
Thanks: 0
Thanked 4 Times in 1 Post
Rep Power: 0
Robert Rodgers is on a distinguished road
Question Dashboard & Experiment Questions

Good morning - I have a few questions here:
  1. On the dashboard if I have a line graph, how can I remove the time 1:00:00 - 1:08:00 from the graph. I am only simulating during working hours but the chart shows times that are not relevant. And to a certain extent will take that time into average - what am I missing here?
  2. When using the Experiment feature, is there custom code or a place to change a the Process Time under an activity in the track? So if I wanted to show different processing times in different scenarios as its set to a variable?
  3. Similar to #1, when I am using the Experiment feature how can I make sure that the data shown in the dashboard is only during working hours.
Thanks in advance for the feedback!

Robert
  #2  
Old 08-28-2013
Robert Rodgers Robert Rodgers is offline
Flexsim User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 6
Downloads: 0
Uploads: 0
Thanks: 0
Thanked 4 Times in 1 Post
Rep Power: 0
Robert Rodgers is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Rodgers View Post
Good morning - I have a few questions here:
  1. On the dashboard if I have a line graph, how can I remove the time 1:00:00 - 1:08:00 from the graph. I am only simulating during working hours but the chart shows times that are not relevant. And to a certain extent will take that time into average - what am I missing here?
I have a presentation tomorrow and I'm hoping to remove the excess time on 2 of my line graphs. The simulation only runs during business hours however it graphs all the earlier time of that day.


Thanks,


Robert
  #3  
Old 08-29-2013
Jörg Vogel's Avatar
Jörg Vogel Jörg Vogel is offline
Flexsim User
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Hannover, Germany
Posts: 643
Downloads: 35
Uploads: 0
Thanks: 802
Thanked 665 Times in 410 Posts
Rep Power: 642
Jörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond repute
Default

first workaround: use a table to collect your data and present this at a visual tool.

If you insist to use the dashboard, have a look at commands to manipulate the bundle data type.

An Example at.

Jörg
The Following User Says Thank You to Jörg Vogel For This Useful Post:
Carsten Seehafer (08-29-2013)
  #4  
Old 08-29-2013
Carsten Seehafer's Avatar
Carsten Seehafer Carsten Seehafer is offline
FlexSim Geek
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Ritterhude, Deutschland
Posts: 230
Downloads: 45
Uploads: 1
Thanks: 474
Thanked 320 Times in 143 Posts
Rep Power: 379
Carsten Seehafer has much to be proud ofCarsten Seehafer has much to be proud ofCarsten Seehafer has much to be proud ofCarsten Seehafer has much to be proud ofCarsten Seehafer has much to be proud ofCarsten Seehafer has much to be proud ofCarsten Seehafer has much to be proud ofCarsten Seehafer has much to be proud ofCarsten Seehafer has much to be proud of
Default

Another option is to start your simulation at 0:00 with the first events at 8:00. Add a user event at 0.001 with this code inside:
Code:
step();
With that the simulation time jumps from 0:00 to 8:00

Last edited by Carsten Seehafer; 08-29-2013 at 07:06 AM.
The Following User Says Thank You to Carsten Seehafer For This Useful Post:
Jörg Vogel (08-29-2013)
  #5  
Old 08-29-2013
Jörg Vogel's Avatar
Jörg Vogel Jörg Vogel is offline
Flexsim User
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Hannover, Germany
Posts: 643
Downloads: 35
Uploads: 0
Thanks: 802
Thanked 665 Times in 410 Posts
Rep Power: 642
Jörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond reputeJörg Vogel has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Rodgers View Post
Good morning - I have a few questions here:

(2.)When using the Experiment feature, is there custom code or a place to change a the Process Time under an activity in the track? So if I wanted to show different processing times in different scenarios as its set to a variable?
Yes, there is a construct called label in Flexsim, which act as a variable. Add a number Label to your processor. Set the value to your first process Time. Get this value and return it in the Process Time Function at your Processor with the command getlabelnum(current,"name of your label").
Change the label value in your experimenter scenarios.

Jörg
  #6  
Old 08-29-2013
Cliff King's Avatar
Cliff King Cliff King is offline
Vice President Technical Services
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Utah
Posts: 272
Downloads: 158
Uploads: 14
Thanks: 102
Thanked 304 Times in 110 Posts
Rep Power: 412
Cliff King has much to be proud ofCliff King has much to be proud ofCliff King has much to be proud ofCliff King has much to be proud ofCliff King has much to be proud ofCliff King has much to be proud ofCliff King has much to be proud ofCliff King has much to be proud ofCliff King has much to be proud of
Default

When running experiments, I think the most appropriate dashboard chart type is the box plot because it gives you distributed statistics over a user-specified period of time during the run and across multiple replications, but for a single scenario. The example I just posted here is a good example taken from an original post by AJ regarding the use of dashboards in an experiment.

Here's a screen capture showing box plot statistics for the length of stay of PCI 1 type patients for the scenario named "6-2-2" just during the daytime hours of 08:00 to 18:00.

Name:  boxplot.jpg
Views: 249
Size:  126.9 KB

Did you know you can change the time scale of the line graph with the scroll bar at the bottom of the line graph widget? There are three adjustments that can be made with the scroll bar using your mouse. Drag the left end of the bar to adjust the earliest time displayed in the graph window, drag the right end to adjust the latest time displayed in the graph window, and drag somewhere in the middle of the bar to slide the graph window left or right.

Here is an example of a line graph displaying staff utilization in a model where the staff don't really do anything until about 6am.

Name:  linebefore.jpg
Views: 242
Size:  46.1 KB

Here's a screen shot after I dragged the left end of the scroll bar to the right.

Name:  lineafter.jpg
Views: 238
Size:  51.4 KB

As for changing an activity's process time during an experiment, there are a couple options. One option Jörg described above is to use a label to hold the numeric value for the process time, and then simply reference the label value within the process time field itself with getlablenum() command. Take not that in Jörg's explanation, he had the might have been the process time of an Item Processing object in mind rather than the process time of a patient's activity, so you would need to adapt the references accordingly (i.e. patient rather than current). Also note that his example assumes you are changing a constant numeric value for the process time.

If you want to experiment with stochastic process times using different distributions for different scenarios, then you need an approach that will let you modify and execute distributions on the fly. You could still a label or a global table to store the process time, but it would need to be a label/table that stores text strings rather than numbers, AND you would need to execute the string to get a number out of it. There happens to be a picklist option called "Based on global table lookup" that lets you specify whether it should return a number from the table, or execute the string it looks up out of the table as an expression.

Having said that, I would suggest you simply use the experiment variable type called "Track Activity Parameter" as shown here:

Name:  TAP1.jpg
Views: 236
Size:  81.6 KB

Then simply select the particular track activity and parameter (i.e. ProcessTime) you want to change as shown here:

Name:  TAP2.jpg
Views: 238
Size:  59.7 KB

Then type in the distributions you want to use for your scenarios as I did in the "Scenario 1" and "Scanario 2" columns of experiment in my example as shown in both screen captures above.

Good luck,

Cliff
The Following User Says Thank You to Cliff King For This Useful Post:
Jorge Toucet (08-29-2013)

Tags
custom code, dashboard, experiment, line graph, scenario


Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Dashboard and Experimenter Lucie Lerivrey Q&A 7 10-03-2013 09:45 AM
dashboard error? zhang xin Q&A 3 03-07-2013 06:19 PM
Dashboard can't display anything... syseo Q&A 6 08-31-2012 01:47 AM
Why can persons come back original position in experiment model ? Dane Lee Q&A 3 07-30-2009 08:03 PM
the Maxium number of Experiment variables Vic Li Q&A 0 02-18-2009 03:47 AM


All times are GMT -6.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2020, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright 1993-2018 FlexSim Software Products, Inc.