To use a resource as an alternate to another resource, connect the alternate resource to the other resource’s assignment connection as shown in the illustration below. If the resource units of the connection to which it is attached are unavailable, the alternate resource will be used. If neither one is available, the first available resource will be used.
You can use the quantity field on the alternate route to define how many resources you need to work on an entity if the primary resource is unavailable.
Alternate to an Alternate
To define an alternate resource for an alternate resource, simply connect the resource to the other alternate connection as shown below. No more than one alternate may be connected to another resource connection so that the order of preference in selecting resources is clear. To define multiple alternate resources, simply continue connecting an alternate resource to each previously connected alternate resource.
Alternate to a Get Connection
When an alternate resource is connected to a Get resource connection as shown in the following illustration, the resulting captured resource must be freed with either a Free resource connection or a FREE statement in Action logic.
Since you cannot know which resource will be captured when assigning resources as alternates to a Get resource connection, you must create a Free resource connection for every possible resource as shown above. Doing this will free the resource that was captured and ProcessModel will ignore the other Free resource connections. See “FREE” for the use of FREE ALL in action logic.
Alternate Resources On Different Shifts
Define an alternate resource on a different shift in the same manner as the alternate descriptions provided above. Assign each resource type to the appropriate shift. See “Defining & Editing Shift & Break Blocks” . If a resource is off shift, a check will be made to see if the alternate is available.
Types of Connectors
- Get and Free
- Get
- Free
- Alternate