A major new feature we introduced in Visual Components 4.2 is Process Modeling; a fast, easy, and visual way to define and manage products, processes, and process flow in your layouts. This new feature provides many important benefits, such as simplifying layout creation and simulation setup, streamlining the modeling and simulation workflow, and improving simulation performance. To help you better understand the Process Modeling workflow, as well as the concepts and functionality behind Process Modeling in Visual Components, we’ve created this short introductory article.
Process Modeling concept with example
The Process Modeling workflow was designed to resemble how real-world production design is done in practice. It consists of the following 5 steps:
- Layout design.
- Define products, their visualization, structure and properties.
- Define processes, like machines, workstations, inventories and buffers using task statements.
- Define flow by creating sequences of processes that products must complete.
- Run simulation, collect KPIs, make necessary changes to achieve your goals.
Next, we’ll go through each step in more detail, using a small machining and painting cell as a reference example.