BPMN Modeling with Simulations

Bazagi has released version 2.5 of Process Modeler. This version contains a Lanner Simulation Engine that can be used to analyze process flows, identify process bottlenecks, and optimize.

The simulation is very simple to set up, and comes complete with a number of Statistical Distributions. I was able to run processes very quickly at level 1, and by adding additional limits and constraints, levels 2 and 3. After a while, I started to receive the error message "The simulation has failed. Please ensure that your model is compliant to the BPMN2.0 standard and that it is supported by the Simulation engine."

As it turns out, the failure was caused by my usage of the Normal Distribution, with the negative three sigma value coming very close to zero - I believe this causes some inputs to be negative, and hence fail. The solution is to use the "Truncated Normal Distribution" and set the minimum value to 0.01 if you happen to be skirting with zero. This should prevent any negatives from occuring, and ensure a smooth BPMN execution.  

This is a great addition to an already wonderful tool.

Stop Searching for Answers

Do you want to innovate or imitate ?

It's become too easy to fire up the browser and seek out the search results for answers.

Has it ever occurred to you that the existence of answers mean that it has been done before ?

There comes a time when the search reveals nothing useful. Instead of giving up, you should be excited that you may be on to something new and unique (or merely that the inventor never bothered to post it on the web).

Stop searching for answers and start creating the right questions.