Flexsim vs. Enterprise Dynamics

Hello everybody,

at the moment I'm working on a decision matrix with several Pros and Cons of various simulation software packages. The result should be an advice on how the company, I'm doing an internship at the moment, should decide regarding 3D simulation software.

In the end I came down to 3 competitors in this area of simulation software: Enterprise Dynamics, SIMIO and Flexsim itself. I already got many facts from the other Flexsim vs. SIMIO thread, but I have no experience at all with Enterprise Dynamics.

I know a little about the background from Flexsim regarding ED. E.g. that Flexsim was a former distributer of ED in the US, but they started with an independent devolopement and the head devoloper came vom ED to Flexsim, ... so you could say that all weak points in ED have been improved and the strenghts have been implemented in Flexsims' concept.

Could you provide me with a few facts to have a few Pros / Cons?
So far I just found out that ED has a direct PLC interface, whereas Flexsim need a 3rd party module for this.

Thank you very very much in advance.
Jens

Hello Jens,

I was there when ED was developed, there might be even some stuff in there that I created. So I know my way around ED quite a bit. I don't know a lot of pro's but I do have quite some cons But to be honest it is old info, so it might be that a lot has improved or changed.

1. There is not something like a tasksequence concept so letting operators walk is difficult anyway. So having a operator/transporter go to a location to scan or do something is easy in Flexsim (one extra task) and very difficult in ED. The operators are part of the flow in ED which makes it complex.
2. So preempting and priority is also not easy
3. Pulling is not present or very limited
4. Results are scattered all over the place, Flexsim has them nicely per object and the same for every object
5. Userinterface are not consistent over the objects so you have to learn every object while in Flexsim everything looks the same
6. Flexsim has 6 degrees of freedom, ED has (had?) 4
7. Flexsim has Kinematics for very accurate movements etc
8. Flexsim has multiple tables per object
9. Flexsim has Multidimensional tables
10. Underlying language in Flexsim is C++ and is has an integrated connection with the MS Visual Studio IDE
11. In Flexsim you can copy a set of parameters or sets of parameters
12. The object set in Flexsim is wel thought out. ED has a ton of objects and you have to find which one you want to use (show the conveyor in Flexsim and see what you have to do in ED ;-)

I was not my intention to trash ED but I can't think of pro's. Maybe this PLC interface but Flexsim has C++ and TCP/IP so it should be quite easy to link to a plc and I know that a number of clients have already done that without too much problems.
If somebody could mention some pro's or update the above list please do so.

Steven

(Actually this looks like the target list for ED developers for next year so I shouldn't write it here )

Thanks for the input I also got such a list by Ralf Gruber who helped me a lot with great information

I ran into the same problem that it's not too easy to find Pro's of competing software over FlexSim, but I think I should find at least 2-3 positive points for my presentation

Hi, steven, where can i find Multidimensional tables info?

A table is simply a tree of nodes. If you go into the tree you can add nodes to every cell and create multidimensional tables that way.

This can be done with global tables but also when you have created a label and turned it into a table, either via the GUI or with using code

You can create tables at different layers using the settablesize command like this:

treenode mycell=gettablecell(< mytable >,3,5);
settablesize(mycell,4,4,DATATYPE_STRING);

where you replace < mytable > with the name of a global table or a pointer to a table. To mix datatypes you can use multiple settablesize statements to build the table up. Note that if you're just adding rows using settablesize, the cell types are taken from the existing rows. Another way is to create a row template somewhere and paste copies of the row under the cell node. This is good for the first row in a dynamic list, while subsequent rows can be created with settablesize.