ARENDG-RM001D-EN-P_Ttlepage 11/30/07 4:08 PM Page 1 Arena® TEMPLATE DEVELOPER’S GUIDE PUBLICATION ARENDG-RM001D-EN-P–November 2007 Supersedes Publication ARENDG-RM001C-EN-P Contact Rockwell Customer Support Telephone — 1.440.646.3434 Online Support — http://www.rockwellautomation.com/support/ Copyright Notice © 2007 Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. This document and any accompanying Rockwell Software products are copyrighted by Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. Any reproduction and/or distribution without prior written consent from Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. is strictly prohibited. Please refer to the license agreement for details. Trademark Notices Arena, Rockwell Automation, and SIMAN are registered trademarks of Rockwell Automation, Inc. Other Trademarks ActiveX, Microsoft, Microsoft Access, SQL Server, Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual SourceSafe, Windows, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Adobe, Acrobat, and Reader are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. ControlNet is a registered trademark of ControlNet International. DeviceNet is a trademark of the Open DeviceNet Vendor Association, Inc. (ODVA) Ethernet is a registered trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel, and Xerox Corporation OLE for Process Control (OPC) is a registered trademark of the OPC Foundation. Oracle, SQL*Net, and SQL*Plus are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders and are hereby acknowledged. Warranty This product is warranted in accordance with the product license. The product’s performance may be affected by system configuration, the application being performed, operator control, maintenance and other related factors. Rockwell Automation is not responsible for these intervening factors. The instructions in this document do not cover all the details or variations in the equipment, procedure, or process described, nor do they provide directions for meeting every possible contingency during installation, operation, or maintenance. This product’s implementation may vary among users. This document is current as of the time of release of the product; however, the accompanying software may have changed since the release. Rockwell Automation, Inc. reserves the right to change any information contained in this document or the software at anytime without prior notice. It is your responsibility to obtain the most current information available from Rockwell when installing or using this product. Version: 12.00.00 (CPR9) Modified: October 8, 2007 12:10 pm ii Contents 1 • Welcome 1 What is Arena simulation software? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Intended audience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 About this guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Where can I go for help? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Reference the user’s guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Explore our examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Get help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Use the SMARTs library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Access the Arena Symbol Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Get phone support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Get Web support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Get training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Get consulting services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Contact us. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 • Arena Template Development Overview 7 Modeling with Arena—An overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Templates and panels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Module definitions and instances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Defining a module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Panel icon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 User view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Dialog design and operands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Logic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Elements and properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Arena hierarchy and SIMAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Flowcharts and data modules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Use of templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 General modeling tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Industry-oriented environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Application-focused tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Improving modeling productivity and sharing modeling technology . . . . . . . . . 26 iii • • • ARENA TEMPLATE DEVELOPER’S GUIDE • • 3 • Module-building Tutorial 29 Module overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Getting started—A new template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Dialog Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 The dialog design window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Adding the module’s dialog operands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Adding the module's entry/exit point operands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Arranging the Dialog form layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Logic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 The logic window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Overview of the Printer module logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Receiving entities and seizing the printer—The Queue and Seize modules . . . . 42 Deciding whether to changeover the printer—The Decide module. . . . . . . . . . . 44 Changeover logic—Assign, Process, and Assign modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 The print logic—Delay and Release modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Defining the Printer module elements—Queues and Variables elements . . . . . . 50 User View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Panel Icon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 A sample model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Preparing the template for use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Single printer simulation model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 4 • The Template Window 65 The template menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Creating a new template window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Loading an existing template panel file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Closing a template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Saving the template panel library file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Creating and editing modules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 The module definitions list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Opening module definition windows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Preparing the template panel for use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Checking the template panel for errors and warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Reviewing errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Template panel file reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Generating the template panel object (.tpo) file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Other template panel information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Changing the version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Template options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Defining required modules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 iv • • CONTENTS • • • Defining data modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Defining a name operand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Creating copies of module definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Compatibility of existing module instances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 5 • The Dialog Design Window 77 Dialog Design Window overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 The Operand Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 The Toolbox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 The dialog form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 The Design Properties grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Using the Toolbox controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Using the Text control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Using the GroupBox control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Using the Line control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Using the TextBox control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Using the ComboBox control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Using the RadioButtonGroup control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Using the CheckBox control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Using the DialogButton control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Using the RepeatGroupDialog control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Using the RepeatGroupTable control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Using the DateTimePicker control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Using the DatePicker control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Using the TimePicker control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Using the FilePicker control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Using the HiddenOperand control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Using operands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Specifying the Name property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Specifying the LogicProperties property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Specifying the Value property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Specifying the DataType property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Specifying the SwitchName property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Specifying the InUserView property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Hidden operands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Using repeat groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Specifying the Name property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Specifying the LogicProperties property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Repeat group definition depth and reference rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Accessing the number of tuples and the tuple number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Combining repeating operand values into a single value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Using repeatable modules in the logic window with repeat groups. . . . . . . . . . 107 v • • • ARENA TEMPLATE DEVELOPER’S GUIDE • • Using accelerator keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Dialog Design toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 6 • The Logic Window 109 Simulation logic and module design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 The logic window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Differences between logic and model windows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Running simulation models (model window) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Referencing operands (logic window) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Switching module instances (logic window) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Defining repeatable logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Module connections in the logic window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Attaching template panels while working in a logic window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Display of animation objects (logic window). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 “Fields” and “operands”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Referencing module data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Referencing operands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Special access for check boxes, radio button groups, and combo boxes . . . . . . 120 Switches in logic window module instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Defining transfer of entities into and out of a module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Referencing non-repeating operands from a repeat group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Referencing repeating operands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Defining repeatable exit points in a module. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Repeatable modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Example 1: Parallel logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Example 2: Serial logic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Example 3: Defining alternate outputs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Customized options using radio button and check box controls . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Module connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Using graphical connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Defining multiple connections from a single exit point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Repeating exit points in the logic window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Switching module instances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Attaching and detaching switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Effect of switches in the logic window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Using Arena’s utility modules (from utlarena.tpo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Defining module trace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Logic definition rules and guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 7 • The User View Window 157 Module instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 vi • • CONTENTS • • • Module-related objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 The module handle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 The Module Text Options dialog box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Entry and exit points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Displayed operands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Draw objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Animation objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 User View switch use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 8 • The Switch Window 169 Defining switches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Switch names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Switch definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Switch definition rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 9 • The Panel Icon Window 175 Creating the panel icon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 10 • Elements 177 Defining elements in modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Creating elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Element lists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Use of elements and properties in module definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Access to properties in a model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Displaying element lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Defining elements via hierarchy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Element operands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Defining element operands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Sub-lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Defining and referencing elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Property operands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Defining Property operands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Defining repeating properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Defining an element/property using a hidden operand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Switches and elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Special element types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Fixed-length elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Hidden element list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 vii • • • ARENA TEMPLATE DEVELOPER’S GUIDE • • Inverted elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 A • Template Design Guidelines 205 Dialog box design (dialog design window) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Operand objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Helpful hints for defining objects in the dialog design window. . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Panel icon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 User view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Module logic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Naming conventions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Template documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Trace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Statistics and reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 B • Tables 211 Elements and properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Standard elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Inverted elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Fixed-length elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Data type definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Connection point data types and SIMAN blocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Entry/exit point types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 C • Creating Online Help Files 269 273 Index 273 viii 1 Welcome 1 • W What is Arena simulation software? e lc o m Arena is an advanced simulation system that provides an interactive environment for e building, graphically animating, verifying, and analyzing simulation models. With Arena, you can design a unique Arena template that is specific to your particular project, company, or industry. The template development features build on Arena’s natural hierarchical structure enabling you to create new simulation tools in a graphical, easy-to- use environment. Within Arena’s template-building area, you create complete simulation building blocks, called modules. These modules may be very simple, such as one that counts customers as they leave a bank. Or you might build a highly complex module that captures all of the activities at a shipyard dock. In fact, Arena’s hierarchy encourages you to take apart the systems you study into their critical, basic elements, then combine these basic elements into the more complex components and subsystems to be simulated. The modules that you build are collected into libraries, referred to as templates. You may use these templates in support of your own simulation activities, or you may share these simulation tools with other modelers. By encouraging this sharing of technology, Arena offers the opportunity for you, as a simulation modeler, to create completely customized environments, without writing any programming code. Novice modelers can access the power of simulation as a decision support tool by working with terminology, modeling logic, and graphical animation that are specially developed for their needs. Experienced simulationists can improve their productivity and share the knowledge they have gained by capturing essential simulation logic and quickly packaging it into a verified, reusable building block for future models. As mentioned above, within Arena you have the ability to define new modeling constructs, called modules, and to store them in libraries, referred to as Application Solution Templates (AST’s), or templates. If you are familiar with Arena’s model-building and analysis environment, you will find that the template development features build on the concepts and interface you already have learned. When you run Arena, you will simply open a Template Window (instead of a Model Window). Select the File > New menu option or press the New File toolbar 1 • • • ARENA TEMPLATE DEVELOPER’S GUIDE • • button. In the dialog that is displayed, select Template Window and click OK, as shown in Figure 1.1. Figure 1.1 Arena’s Template Window selection This template window serves as a “home base” for the activities involved in building a template. The windows that you work with to define modules are displayed on the same desktop as Arena model, input, and output windows. You interact with these windows using the standard Arena user interface. Intended audience Before you begin to access the capabilities of template building, you should already have developed a good understanding of the basic Arena modeling interface and the either the SIMAN template or Arena’s Basic Process, Advanced Process, and Advanced Transfer templates. This guide assumes that you are familiar with Arena modeling concepts and terminology, which are presented in the Arena User’s Guide and online help. About this guide The Arena Template Developer’s Guide is designed to serve as both an instruction manual for building templates and as a reference guide for the template-building features. We start by presenting two chapters that familiarize you with the concepts and terminology employed in Arena and walk you through a simple module-building tutorial. Following this, we provide a description of the template window, then of each of the five windows that you employ to build modules. Next we present Elements, the final concept related to the definition of Arena modules. Appendix B of this book contains reference tables. To begin your experience with template development, we recommend that you read Chapter 2, “Arena Template Development Overview,” to become familiar with Arena concepts and terminology. Then, follow the step-by-step instructions provided in the module-building tutorial in Chapter 3. While you are building your first module, you may want to refer to concepts presented in Chapter 2. 2