Assembling components using arena

[Dxtrade]

How can I batch or match multiple entities into three different products?
example: There are 5 different entities: E1, E2, E3, E4, and E5. I Need to assembly three Products: P1, P2 and P3. Each product consists of a combination the entities mention above. P1:- E1, E2 and E3, P2:- E1,E3 and E5, P3:- E2, E4, and E5.

[ewilliams]

You have asked a very good question -- pertaining to a situation often met not only in manufacturing (as your context indicates), but order "assembly" and shipment in warehousing. I expect you will want to use detached queues. Their availability and use is not at all obvious. In Arena, attach the Blocks template and add a Queue from this template. You will find, and need to check, a check-box "Detach". This queue is now not attached to another block (e.g., it is not part of a Process block). Entities which enter this queue have to be "invited off." Entities E1 through E5 prepare themselves though whatever earlier events (sub-assembly, arrival from vendor, etc.) you wish to model, and then enter detached queues (queues Q1 through Q5 if you like those names). Now consider a different entity P1. This entity "aspires" to become a P1 product, all assembled and ready to ship, send downstream for painting or polishing, or sell. When the prototype P1 is ready to get its E1, E2, and E3 pieces (think "BOM" = "bill of material"), it will need to arrive at a QPICK block, also available in the Blocks template. There it can choose the correct queues from which to "call" a sub-piece -- if one is ready and waiting. So your model will readily be able to expose potential severe problems (e.g., "we keep running out of E2s because we're getting a lot of orders for P1s and P3s, both of which need them."). The P2 and P3 aspirant entities will undergo a similar process.

[Varunjain]

[QUOTE=Dxtrade;7575]How can I batch or match multiple entities into three different products?
example: There are 5 different entities: E1, E2, E3, E4, and E5. I Need to assembly three Products: P1, P2 and P3. Each product consists of a combination the entities mention above. P1:- E1, E2 and E3, P2:- E1,E3 and E5, P3:- E2, E4, and E5.[/QUOTE]

This problem can be easily solved by using well know techniques from operation research i.e., simplex method as well as sequencing model.
Eg. consider three Products: P1, P2 and P3 as x1,x2, x3 and accordingly tabulating the data as per your your availability and requirement.then putting that problem in any simplex soling software you will get the result.

[ewilliams]

Excellent ideas from OR [operations research] in above comments by Varunjain. If a simulation modeler is using Arena, the Batch and Separate modules in the Basic template can handle logic such as this. Similar logical capabilities are available in other simulation software tools (e.g. the "SELECT" Rule in WITNESS, or the JOIN Rule in ProModel).