Shift schedule import from excel

Hi,

Flexsim's defualt is a weekly fixed schedule and I'm trying to model a dynamic shift schedule imported from excel.

Has anyone tried or has an example model where they import and read shift schedule from excel?

What type of data should be specified in the excel data to determine operational time? and how would Flexsim read it from the global table?

I'd really appreciate your help. Thank you!

If you want to try different scheduling scenarios in an experiment, then you should create all shift schedules you want to try ahead of time, and then use experiment variables to make shift schedule assignments to your staff across the various scenarios of the experiment as shown here:



However, it sounds like you're wanting to either change the definition of a shift schedule, or make a new shift schedule assignment during the course of a single model run. I'm guessing that both of these options are possible, but tricky! The tricky part is the timing associated with when you make the change. Whether you make the change when the staff are "up" (available) or "down" (unavailable) makes a difference. If the staff are in the "down" state, they are currently being controlled by a task sequence generated by the "Down Function" of the shift schedule they are currently a member of.

To change shift schedule assignments on the fly, you will be using the following two commands:

memberremove(DrMartin, "AM_Shift", 1);
memberadd(DrMartin, "PM_Shift", 1);

These two commands would first remove Dr. Martin from the AM_Shift schedule and then assign him to the PM_Shift schedule.

As for updating a given shift schedule on the fly, I've never tried it, but I suppose it may be possible. Once again, the trick is to do it at a time where it is safe to make the change. This will require some experimenting to figure out.

Let me point you in the right direction for importing or exporting tables between FlexSim HC and Excel. You need to be aware of the import/export tool found in the menu Tools>Excel>Table Import/Export. Here is an example showing two import/export tasks I named "AM_Shift" and "PM_Shift". These names happen to match the name of the two Shift Schedules I have in my model, and they match the sheet names in an Excel workbook I have saved.



It's important that the name of the task match the name of a sheet in an Excel workbook that you wish to either import from or export to. As for what table in the model, the data will be imported to or exported from, the "Table Type" and "Table" fields you see on the window in the above image. Keep in mind that you will be using one sheet per table you want to import/export; however, your workbook may contain multiple sheets of course.

The best way to ensure you have the data formatted correctly in your Excel workbook, is to first export the table from your model to the workbook. This will give you the template you need to create a proper formatted sheet to import back into the model after making changes to it. The import/export tool can be used to import/export data to several different types of tables (e.g. Shift Schedules, Global Tables, Arrival Schedules, Hourly Arrivals, etc.), and each table requires a different format.

As an example, here is what the "AM_Shift" schedule looks like in my model, and further down is a screenshot showing what it looks like properly formatted in an Excel workbook on a sheet I also named "AM_Shift".





Typically, you would start the import or export tasks by clicking either the "Start Import" or "Start Export" button you see on the import/export tool shown up above. However, it is possible to start the import/export tasks with one of the following commands:

ImportTables();
ExportTables();

If you don't want to be prompted to browse for an Excel workbook, then you must enter a valid path to an existing workbook on your computer as shown in the example below:

ImportTables("D:/Users/cliff.king/Documents/FlexSimHC4/MyWorkbook.xls");

You might want to try executing these commands in the "Down Trigger" or "Resume Trigger" fields of your shift schedules, or maybe you'll need to execute them a little before or after the time of an actual shift change by executing them in a User Event (see Tools>User Events) at a specific time.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes. If you would like to work with me off-line to solve a specific model problem, I'd be happy to do so, just send me a direct email.

Cliff

Hi Cliff

Thank you so much for the clarification, I'll try to experiment on this and let you know how it goes

Ploy