Processes use time and often resources to generate the user-defined Objects. A process can be automated and available all the time or limited to a shift pattern.

When defining a BPMN Process symbol the following Simulation properties apply:

A Shift can consist of other Shifts, or it can be at the atomic level.

Processes have a quantity that represents their capacity or ability to process objects.

Priority determines which processes a particular resource will do first from a scale of 1 being the highest and 9 the lowest. The simulator will attempt to allocate a resource and an object to the process, where both are available the resources will be allocated to the process with the highest priority.

Select Transform on output? if you want to change the Object as it passes through to the next process symbol.

By entering a number into this field, you are specifying a buffer that contains n objects waiting to be processed. By default it is set to the maximum number permitted in the simulator, which is 65535. You can decrease this value to limit the number of objects flowing into the buffer and therefore stalling the process.

By entering a number into this field, you are specifying a buffer that contains n objects waiting to be processed or passed to the next process. By default it is set to the maximum number permitted in the simulator, which is 65535. You can decrease this value to limit the number of objects flowing out of the buffer and therefore stalling the process.

A Resource Allocation consists of one or more Roles that will be available to work on the process.

You must specify a Service Time Profile for each process included on a BPMN diagram in order to simulate that diagram. The Service Time Profile specifies how long it take the process to complete. This time can be built up of one or more individual time elements that could also have been used in other processes.

Time profiles can be defined as either constant values, variables, or distributions (using the distributions wizard).

There are four types of processes:

Receives and processes each object individually

Processes a number of objects together using a single processing time e.g. the post clerks in our example deliver post in the same time regardless of the value of applications in their mail bag.

Takes a defined number of objects and produces a single object from them, an example could include the packing of order components into a box. The new objects inherit the object type and attributes of the last object to be assembled unless object transformation and /or attribute changes are requested.

Takes a single object and creates an additional number of objects as specified by the user. An example is a machine that takes in raw a single quantity of mixture and produces a dozen loaves of bread. The original object entering the machine can be consumed or continue through the model. Objects will be created as the same type and carry the same attributes as the object they are produced from unless the user specifies that the object type is transformed change on output or changes the attribute values.

While produced objects inherit the attributes and object type from the original object they are produced in zero time as far as the simulation is concerned and will affect any subsequent statistics.

Penalties represent the amount of time a process will allocate to completing a partly finished process from the previous shift.

Allowances represent the additional time a process will continue working to finish a process after it goes off shift.

Penalties and Allowances also apply to Resource Shifts.

Various costing values can be allocated to a process. These values are optional and used to report on the overall cost of the process and netted against revenues to provide an approximate profit value.