When you need to schedule many entities that have unique attributes. When schedules needs to be changed, or modified quickly to improve production. The real benefit is that you can pull data from your systems and copy into ProcessModel in seconds.
Importing raw data into ProcessModel just got easier with the new and improved Scheduled Arrivals Input Sheet. The new worksheet includes the ability to import just dates, or dates with pre-assigned attribute values, the worksheet can now also do more than one scheduled arrivals at the same time.
Example Usage
One of the largest window manufacturers in the United States pulls production data, reads it into ProcessModel using past data to optimize their production lines.
A large hospital read in historical data to increase their total usable capacity for inpatient stays.
A global truck manufacturer changed production line assignments for a highly customized truck. The scheduled arrivals allowed hem to read historical data and show the improvements as a result of the changes.
A manufacturer of temporary buildings used historical data to show what would have happened with new system upgrades.
Where to Find the Model Object
The following Model Object will be used to import scheduled arrivals and other data into ProcessModel;
- Arrivals \ Import Scheduled Arrivals
Difficulty Level
- Ease of Use: Easy
- Ease of Modification: Moderate
How to Use the Model Object
- Open Your Model: Open your model. Make sure that your model has at-least one scheduled arrival.
- Insert the Model Object into Your Model: Locate the appropriate location in your model where you would like to place the model object, move the view to the location and then insert the model object.
- Open the Excel File: Right click on the Scheduled ArrivalsInput Sheet Excel icon and click on the third option from the bottom to open the Scheduled ArrivalsInput vx-x Excel file, where x-x represents the version number of the Excel file.
Before using this Excel file for the first time, or after changing your model name, make sure that a manual export of data is done via ProcessModel. From your model, click Tools \ Export Data, click ‘Yes’ to all prompts until the data export file opens, close the data file and then use this Excel file.Click Enable Content if prompted
- Setup the Excel File: Once the Scheduled ArrivalsInput vx-x Excel file opens click the 1. Setup button. This will instruct the Excel file to ping ProcessModel and fetch the name of all entities that have a Scheduled arrival from the active model and create new tabs for each entity. In our case we have two entities called Item and Item2.
If you have multiple scheduled arrivals, ProcessModel will create separate tabs for each of the arrivals. If you don’t want all those scheduled arrivals to be updated, only enter data for the ones you want changed. - Enter Raw Data
- Copy attribute names needed for the scheduled arrivals update into cell C6 onwards. Example data is shown below.
Example date – Remove the example data. - Copy your date into the Excel file, from cell A7 onwards. Date and time needs to be in column A, quantity needs to be in column B, other attributes can be put in any order.
Attribute names in Excel much match attribute names in your model.
- If you have multiple scheduled arrivals, move to the next entity tab and follow the steps (6.1 & 6.2) for all scheduled arrival entities.
- Copy attribute names needed for the scheduled arrivals update into cell C6 onwards. Example data is shown below.
- Import Data from the Spreadsheet to ProcessModel: Once all the raw data is entered for all the scheduled arrivals, move back to the first worksheet and click the 2. Update button. This will update your raw data to ProcessModel.
If the import was successful, you will receive a confirmation. You can then click OK and go back to ProcessModel, or click the Simulate Model button to simulate the model, you have the option to simulate with or without animation.
If the import was unsuccessful, you will receive a message informing you of what went wrong. You can then fix the issue before trying again.
- Verify Import: After a successful import you can check your scheduled arrivals to make sure that data was imported successfully. You will be looking to see if the arrivals and the action logic for attributes match the data in Excel.
- Completion: The Import Scheduled Arrivals model is now integrated into your model, you should now be able to save and then simulate the model.