Simulating a Business Process Model with SIMUL8

SIMUL8 is a flow simulation program that lets you view your process in action, showing how its control flow moves around the organization, revealing bottlenecks, over-utilized resources, or under-resourced elements. PowerDesigner supports the principal objects and parameters for SIMUL8 version 9.0 and higher.

Note: You can simulate any BPM, but for the best results, we recommend that you simulate Analysis language BPMs only (see Analysis BPM).

Simulation helps you to better understand the expected performance of your business processes before their implementation, by providing you with useful analysis metrics and assistance in business process optimization, and is most useful when:

The business process being analyzed is well defined and repetitive.
An operational (logical or quantitative) decision is being taken.
Activities and events show some interdependency and variability.
The cost to experiment on the actual system is greater than the cost to perform a simulation.

The following example shows the Create Order process:

bpm for simul8 example

You can simulate this model with SIMUL8, and analyze your simulation results:

simulated BPM

You rapidly see that some work items have been blocked in queues by the Process Order and Process Corporate Order work centers which are waiting for the availability of the Ordering employee resource. You can open the SimulationReadme.txt file to review how you can adjust the simulation parameters to remove work items blocked in queues.

For detailed information about SIMUL8, see http://www.SIMUL8.com).

Modeling for Simulation
PowerDesigner supports the modeling of the principal objects required to simulate your BPM with SIMUL8.
Simulating a BPM
You can simulate one or more business process diagrams by exporting each one of them to a SIMUL8 model, and running a simulation. You can analyze the simulation results, and use them to adjust simulation parameters. You can then re-import the simulated model in PowerDesigner to synchronize your changes with your BPM where you can create additional modeling objects.
SIMUL8 Work Center Properties
SIMUL8 work center property sheets contain all the standard process tabs, along with the Simulation tab.
SIMUL8 Required Resource Properties
The resource requirements of work centers are contained in resource flow property sheets, which contain all the standard resource flow tabs, along with the Simulation tab.
SIMUL8 Resource Properties
SIMUL8 resource property sheets contain all the standard resource tabs, along with the Simulation tab.
SIMUL8 Work Entry Point Properties
SIMUL8 work entry point property sheets contain all the standard start tabs, along with the Simulation tab.
SIMUL8 Work Exit Point Properties
SIMUL8 work exit point property sheets contain all the standard end tabs, along with the Simulation tab.
SIMUL8 Route Properties
SIMUL8 route property sheets contain all the standard flow tabs, along with the Simulation tab.
SIMUL8 Diagram Properties
SIMUL8 diagram property sheets contain all the standard diagram tabs, along with the Simulation tab.