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Forge

Version
2.0

Arena Tutorial 2
Serial Processing
vs.
Parallel Processing
Copyright 2010
All rights reserved
Mark Polczynski
mhp.techforge@gmail.com

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Location of this and

other
Simulation With Arena
book examples
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Tutorial Goals:
Build basic model of four-step process.
Add warm-up period to generate results on steady-state
conditions.
Run the simulation for multiple replications to improve
statistical significance of results.
Add a decision block for returned applications.
Assign difficulty levels to individual applications.
Change the series organization of the loan approval process
to a parallel system.
Miscellaneous issues.
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Loan Approval
Process:
1.Check credit rating, by
Alfie
2.Prepare loan covenant, by

Looking for statistics on:

Betty

loan, by Chuck
Average of the total time, from entry3.Price
to completion,
that
an application spends in the system. 4.Disburse funds, by Doris

Shorter times mean happy customers, and loan

interest payments start sooner.

Average of the total time applications are waiting to be

worked on at the next process step.

Can we re-organize process to reduce waiting time?

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Basic
Model

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Checking
your model
for errors

Check model
without
running

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Configure
modules

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Configure
modules

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Configure
modules

Replace
Mean with
1

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Specify run
length and
reporting
units

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

10

Note!
Your
results
may vary!

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

11

Tutorial Goals:
Build basic model of four-step process.
Add warm-up period to generate results on steadystate conditions.
Run the simulation for multiple replications to improve
statistical significance of results.
Add a decision block for returned applications.
Assign difficulty levels to individual applications.
Change the series organization of the loan approval process
to a parallel system.
Miscellaneous issues.
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

12

Add warm-up
period

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

13

Review
results
Still
0.00
Was
11.98

Was
16.08

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

14

Tutorial Goals:
Build basic model of four-step process.
Add warm-up period to generate results on steady-state
conditions.
Run the simulation for multiple replications to
improve statistical significance of results.
Add a decision block for returned applications.
Assign difficulty levels to individual applications.
Change the series organization of the loan approval process
to a parallel system.
Miscellaneous issues.
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

15

Set number
of run
replications

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

16

Review
results

Was
12.31

Was
22.27

Was
16.45

Was
27.21

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

17

Review
results
Indicates
confidence in
the average
value

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

18

For 100 replications, 95 of

the replications would
have simulated average
values equal to the actual
average values
+/- the half width range.

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Meaning
of half
width

19

Effect of
increasing
replication
s

Results for 100

replications:

Was 12.45
and 4.16
for
10
replications

Was 16.36
and 4.26
for
10
replications
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

20

Tutorial Goals:
Build basic model of four-step process.
Add warm-up period to generate results on steady-state
conditions.
Run the simulation for multiple replications to improve
statistical significance of results.
Add a decision block for returned applications.
Assign difficulty levels to individual applications.
Change the series organization of the loan approval process
to a parallel system.
Miscellaneous issues.
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

21

Not all
applicatio
ns are
accepted

Add Decide
module

10% of apps
will be
returned

Add
Dispose
module

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

22

Review
results

Effect of
returning 10%
of apps

10 repetitions of 160
hours
with an 8 hour warm-up.

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

23

Tutorial Goals:
Build basic model of four-step process.
Add warm-up period to generate results on steady-state
conditions.
Run the simulation for multiple replications to improve
statistical significance of results.
Add a decision block for returned applications.
Assign difficulty levels to individual applications.
Change the series organization of the loan approval process
to a parallel system.
Miscellaneous issues.
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

24

Sources of process delay time variation:

Differences in how each loan officer handles each

application.

Differences between each loan application.

This accounts for

differences in how
each loan officer
handles each
application.

How do we
account for
differences in the
loans
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing themselves?
25

Entities are the things that flow through the process we are modeling.
They are the things that get worked on by the process.
Different types of entities can be flowing through the process.
Resources are the things that do the work on the entities.
Just as there can be multiple types of entities in a model, there can be
multiple types of resources.
Addbe
a needed
difficulty-related
More than one resource or one type of resource may
to work on
attribute to the
an entity.

Application entities.

Events are things that happen to entities as they flow through the process.
For now, we have just two events: entities arrive at a resource or its queue,
and depart from the resource after being serviced.
Attributes are characteristics that are common to all entities of the same
type.
Entities may have many different characteristics, but attributes are just the
ones that we care about in the model.
For now, our entities have just two attributes: arrival time and service time.
Variables are like attributes, except they apply to the entire process, not just
an entity type.
Sometimes variables are called global variables.
Typically, we have at least one variable: the system clock, which keeps
time while the simulation
is running,
Arena Tutorial
2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing
26

Accounting for
application
difficulty

Type in:
Credit
difficulty

Type in:
TRIA(0.5, 1,
1.5)
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

27

1. Generates a
loan
application
entity

Assigning
attributes to
entities

2. Generates a value from triangular

distribution
3. Gives the value the name Credit
difficulty
4. Attaches value and name to entity

5. What does Process

module do with tagged
entity?

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

28

Resource-related
variation
vs.
entity-related
variation

Accounts
for entityrelated
variability

Accounts for
resourcerelated
variability

Credit difficulty
=
TRIA(.5, 1, 1.5)

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

29

We just did this

one for
Application
difficulty

Add a difficulty-related
attribute for each
process step.

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

30

We just did this for

Application
difficulty

Change Expression
for the other three
Process modules
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

31

Review
results

10 repetitions of 160 hours with an 8 hour warm-up.

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

32

Tutorial Goals:
Build basic model of four-step process.
Add warm-up period to generate results on steady-state
conditions.
Run the simulation for multiple replications to improve
statistical significance of results.
Add a decision block for returned applications.
Assign difficulty levels to individual applications.
Change the series organization of the loan approval
process to a parallel system.
Miscellaneous issues.
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

33

Parallel
processing
of
applications
Edit all four
Edit all four
process
modules

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

34

Create 4
generic loan
officers

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

35

Review
results

10 repetitions of 160 hours with an 8 hour warm-up.

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

36

Current process
module
configuration

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

37

Note: In Arena, entities seize resources,

i.e., apps seize loan officers vs. loan officers seizing apps.
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

38

Still need to
release loan
officer

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

39

Review
results

10 repetitions of 160 hours with an 8 hour warm-up.

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

40

Tutorial Goals:
Build basic model of four-step process.
Add warm-up period to generate results on steady-state
conditions.
Run the simulation for multiple replications to improve
statistical significance of results.
Add a decision block for returned applications.
Assign difficulty levels to individual applications.
Change the series organization of the loan approval process
to a parallel system.
Miscellaneous issues.
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

41

+ key
- key

Zooming
the model
view

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

42

Naming a
model view
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

43

Prints
on page
1

Drag a box and

move the
contents

Prints
on page
2

Seeing how
the model will
print
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

44

Default
= 500

Now
prints on
page 1
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

Scaling the
print-out
45

The SMARTs Library

provides example
on how to do
various things in
Arena

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

46

Find the SMARTs

topic you are
interested in and
open it up
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

47

Click on a module
to see how it is
configured
Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

48

Contact the Author:

Mark Polczynski, PhD
The Technology Forge
mhp.techforge@gmail
.com

Arena Tutorial 2 - Serial vs. Parallel Processing

49