Anybody has a reference for how AnyLogic implements it's rate per day? Specifically, my agent is at different locations (based on time of day) throughout the day. If there are 10 triggers a day, do they happen randomly for each agent throughout the day, or only at the beginning of a day (when agent is at home), etc.?
Thank you, Amy! Your explanation was very helpful.
The rate follows the Poisson distribution. If you divide 1/rate, you will get an inter-arrival time that follows the exponential.
As this is random, you may not actually get 10 a day - you may get 9 one day and 11 the next. If you want to get exactly 10 in a day, you need to think about writing your own code to make that happen. That might be something like generating 10 dynamic events randomly sampled times that all trigger a transition in their action code (that would not be exponential between events).
Related
I am currently completing some verification checks on an Anylogic DES simulation model, and I have two source blocks with identical hourly arrival rate schedules, broken down into 24 x 1h blocks.
The issue I am encountering is significant differences in the number of agents generated by one block compared with another. I understand that the arrival rate is based on the poisson distribution, so there is some level of randomness in the instants of agent generation, but I would expect that the overall number generated by these two blocks should be similar, if not identical. For example, in one operating scenario one block is generating 78 agents, whilst the other is only generating 67 over the 24h period. This seems to be a common issue across all operating scenarios.
Is there a potential explanation regarding idiosyncrasies within Anylogic that might explain this?
Any pointers would be welcomed.
I think it occurs because it follows a poisson distribution. To solve this, you could use the interarrival time function of the source block. In that case you would have the same number of arrivals for different source blocks. However, I'm not sure whether this fits a schedule. If not, you could use the getHourOfDay() function together with a parameter representing the interarrival time. You then have to write the code below for every hour of the day:
if(getHourOfDay()==14) parameter =5;
using sources with poisson distributions will definitely not produce same results... That's the magic of stocastic models.
An alternative to solve this problem is the following:
sources will generate using the inject function
use dynamic events that will be in charge to do source.inject();
let's imagine you have R trains coming per day, and this is a fixed value you want to use, you can then distribute the trains accross the day by doing this:
for(int i=0;i<R;i++){
create_DynamicEvent1(uniform(0,1),DAY); //for source1
create_DynamicEvent2(uniform(0,1),DAY); //for source2
}
This doesn't follow a poisson distribution, but generates a predefined number of arrivals of trains throughout the day, and you can use another distribution of your choice if the uniform is not good enough for you.
run this for every day
I am currently working on a simple simulation that consists of 4 manufacturing workstations with different processing times and I would like to measure the WIP inside the system. The model is PennyFab2 in case anybody knows it.
So far, I have measured throughput and cycle time and I am calculating WIP using Little's law, however the results don't match he expectations. The cycle time is measured by using the time measure start and time measure end agents and the throughput by simply counting how many pieces flow through the end of the simulation.
Any ideas on how to directly measure WIP without using Little's law?
Thank you!
For little's law you count the arrivals, not the exits... but maybe it doesn't make a difference...
Otherwise.. There are so many ways
you can count the number of agents inside your system using a RestrictedAreaStart block and use the entitiesInside() function
You can just have a variable that adds +1 if something enters and -1 if something exits
No matter what, you need to add the information into a dataset or a statistics object and you get the mean of agents in your system
Little's Law defines the relationship between:
Work in Process =(WIP)
Throughput (or Flow rate)
Lead Time (or Flow Time)
This means that if you have 2 of the three you can calculate the third.
Since you have a simulation model you can record all three items explicitly and this would be my advice.
Little's Law should then be used to validate if you are recording the 3 values correctly.
You can record them as follows.
WIP = Record the average number of items in your system
Simplest way would be to count the number of items that entered the system and subtract the number of items that left the system. You simply do this calculation every time unit that makes sense for the resolution of your model (hourly, daily, weekly etc) and save the values to a DataSet or Statistics Object
Lead Time = The time a unit takes from entering the system to leaving the system
If you are using the Process Modelling Library (PML) simply use the timeMeasureStart and timeMeasureEnd Blocks, see the example model in the help file.
Throughput = the number of units out of the system per time unit
If you run the model and your average WIP is 10 units and on average a unit takes 5 days to exit the system, your throughput will be 10 units/5 days = 2 units/day
You can validate this by taking the total units that exited your system at the end of the simulation and dividing it by the number of time units your model ran
if you run a model with the above characteristics for 10 days you would expect 20 units to have exited the system.
I am trying to create a trend in which visitors to an event slowly decline every year.
This is the setup: https://imgur.com/6mx3xy2
I want to ensure that for instance in year 1 there are 100,000 visitors but the next year this declines with 1%, so that next year only 99,000 visitors are present and the year after that 99.000*0.99 so in the total of those years 297.010 people have visited. (So, the Stock value of visitors being 297.010 after a simulation of 3 years)
What values/formulas should I give my NewInfoRealVisitors variable and flow equation for example? Or all the other variables for that matter
Ok, a lot of things to do here, first your structure is wrong and should be like this:
visitorsPerYear = annualVisitors it's the same variable, but defined as a flow and as a stock at the same time
annualVisitorsDecline = annualVisitors*declineRate
Now, to obtain the exact values you want (total visitors = 297010)
you need to use years as the model time units and you need to use 1 as the fixed time step:
And finally, you need to run the model in virtual time (as fast as possible) because otherwise anylogic changes your fixed time step without your control
If you don't do all this, you will just get an approximation of 297.010 based on Euler equations... close enough, but not exactly it.
I have a simple source to sink model and I am merely altering the "Rate" to 6 per hour. I would expect a fixed 6 agents to be generated each hour, but it seems like in the first hour from 0 to 60min, only 3 agents are generated. Similarly in the time 60-120min, only 5 agents were generated.
Is there a warm up period in Anylogic or something like this that explains what is happening?
Another alternative is to just use the interarrival time with a fixed time. This will give you the same results as Felipe's answer, but with one less object, as you will not need the event.
A few important items to note on this approach:
Instead of 6.0, using a parameter would be better. You could call this parameter dArrivalsPerHour. This would make your source block easier to read in the future, and give you some better flexibility. Your interarrival time would be 1.0 / dArrivalsPerHour.
Make sure you divide by at least (1) double. If you did 1/6, java would actually return 0! This is because in Java two integers divided by each other returns an integer, so java just truncates the decimal. If you use a parameter, just set its type to double. Usually to be extra careful against anyone accidentally changing my parameter type to integer in the future, I would still go ahead and use a 1.0.
AnyLogic does not have an arrival at time zero in this approach. The first arrival would be at 0.166 hours. If you want an arrival at time zero, followed by this pattern (it would still be 6 per hour, just shifting when it starts), then you have a couple of options. First, you can use Felipe's approach and set the first occurrence time to zero. An alternative would be to could call an inject On Startup OR after you have finished any initialization code your model has.
Happy Modeling!
The source block doesn't produce exactly 6 agents per hour, it produces agents using a poisson distribution with mean 6 per hour (lambda=6). So the number of agents per hour you get will be random. But the reason why you always get 3 in the first hour and 5 in the second hour is that you have a fixed seed:
You can find that option clicking on your simulation experiment under the randomness tab. If you change to random seed it will produce different agents per hour instead of always 3 and 5.
To produce EXACTLY 6 per hours you need to use an event. But first create a source that generates agents through injection:
And the event running 6 times per hour, adding 1 agent to the source:
I'm trying to simulate a pedestrian flow in the entrance of an hospital.
We are installing check-in platforms and I want to know how many platforms we should get according to the patient flow.
I'm using Anylogic personal learning edition and when I put an arrival rate of 5 per hour during the simulation only 3 appears.
I'm trying to understand how anylogic works and distribute the pedestrians according to the rate we put.
For the personnal learning edition 1h equal 1min in real.
enter image description here
if you choose rate=5, the pedSource block will generate pedestrians with an exponentially distributed interarrival time with mean = 1/rate = 1/5.
Which means that the average of arrivals on the long term will be 5, but you won't get 5 every hour since it's a stochastic variable.
If you change the seed, you will have different arrivals... click on Simulation: Main and you can change the seed or use a random seed:
Now if you really want exactly 5 per hour in a deterministic way, you need to change the arrival from rate to inject function:
Then you can create an event that runs cyclically 5 times per hour.. or 1 time every 12 minutes:
and you do pedSource.inject(1);