SIMUL8 2008 Feature List
SIMUL8 2008 is the latest release of SIMUL8. SIMUL8 2008 is the most feature-rich upgrade we've ever released. Contact sales@SIMUL8.com for more information.
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Standard to Professional
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Professional to Professional |
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We've added a new variable type to SIMUL8, arrays, and these can have as many dimensions as you wish. You can store both numeric and text data in the same array, we know of no other tool which offers this variant type array functionality. We've also provided a viewer that allows you to map any dimension by another so you can easily visualize the date stored.
These are a revelation for SIMUL8 making storing your data and coding much easier, faster and more efficient.
This feature is only available with SIMUL8 Professional

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Layers allow you to manage how your simulation looks more easily. You can create as many layers as you like and then assign objects and background images to one or more layers. Then depending on whether the layer is set to be visible or not you will or won't see the objects.
It's a simple concept that gives you lots of choices. You can have views to display onscreen results only active during run time say. You could have a debugging layer containing all the objects you've added for routing or coding reasons so they never have to be seen keeping the layout clean and simple.
This feature is only available with SIMUL8 Professional

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All your results are now accessible from the Results Manager. Putting all the results at your finger tips makes it so much easier to perform in depth analysis of your simulations.
All results are categorized and organized in a tree allowing you to quickly navigate all your results and add them to configurable report displays.
This feature is only available with SIMUL8 Professional

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As your simulation runs the color and intensity of the routing arrows is adjusted to show which route has the highest volume of work items. It's a powerful graphical display but also a useful analysis tool.
This feature is only available with SIMUL8 Professional

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Import & Export Visual Logic |
We've created Visual Logic files allowing you to save all your commonly used Visual Logic routines. You can import them into any simulation and if the relevant variables don't exist SIMUL8 will create them for you.
This feature is only available with SIMUL8 Professional
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The Input Summary introduced in SIMUL8 2007 provides a summary of all the objects in your simulation. Each object type is displayed on a separate tab as the properties of the objects are quite different.When you double click on a cell and it will open the relevant dialog for the object.
We've now extended it to included custom properties and Components, as well functionality to sort and find within the reports.

This feature is only available with SIMUL8 Professional
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In SIMUL8 2007 we introduced lots of new features to allow you to completely customize the display of your charts. Now we've made all this functionality available from a toolbar inside the chart window. Making it much quicker to update the format of your chart. We also added a few more options for you to experiment with, such as rotation.
This feature is only available with SIMUL8 Professional
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Similar to the input summary but for distributions.
- See all your distribution parameters in one grid
- Sort on any column
- Copy to the clipboard so you add to your reports

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The Input Summary now displays the custom properties values set for each object including components.

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This new report shows the current state of every Work Center, Work Entry Point and Conveyor in your simulation, so whether it's working, blocked, waiting on work to arrive etc.
You can also choose to "Show States" so you can see visually on screen the states. The states stay visible as the simulation runs providing additional animation and a valuable debugging tool.

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With the release of SIMUL8 2008 all our products are now 100% compatible with all versions of Windows Vista straight out of the box.
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Work Entry Point Schedule |
In older versions of SIMUL8 you could use Visual Logic to set up a schedule of arrivals for a Work Entry Point. In 2008 we've made it much easier by allowing you to directly set up a schedule in a Work Entry Point.
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You can now add a grid to your main simulation window. This allows you to quickly place your objects where you want them and also provides an alternative view for your simulation.

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SIMUL8 has always been fast, in some studies a minimum of ten times faster than our competitors. We've optimized SIMUL8 even more to improve speed again so that now your simulations will run about 30% faster!
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Time Waiting for Resource |
Work Centers can be unable to work for a variety of different reasons so in SIMUL8 2008 we've broken Work Centers results down further to tell you how much of the Work Center not working time is as a result of a Resource not being available.
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There are many scenarios where you want different Resources to handle work under different circumstances. This can be done by creating lots of different work centers with different resource assignments and controlling the routing appropriately but this can make your structure overly complicated.
So now you can add all your resources to the one Work Center then check one box and SIMUL8 will select the appropriate Resource from the list depending on the label value on the work item.

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No more keeping lists of assumptions or things to do on bits of paper or external files that get separated from the simulation. Now you can store them inside your simulation in the Scratchpad. You can create as many pages as you like and all the text can be formatted.

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Instead of using a static image or an animated belt to animate your conveyors you can now choose a graph icon. The graph visually shows the contents of the conveyor over time.

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Assign Resources by Matrix |
If you have lots of Work Centers to assign Resources to, or just want to double check you have assigned them all correctly it can be really tedious having to go into every Work Center dialog. So we've added a new dialog which allows you to see a matrix view of all the Work Centers and Resources and what assignments have been made. You can also assign Resources directly in the dialog by just typing the number required by each Work Center to process a work item.

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Most simulations become really large so to give you as much space on the simulation window as possible we've added folding sides.
They're available on both the left and right side of the simulation window so you can easily hide away andy of your docked windows. |
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There has been lots of research into a variety of different methods on how to work out the right number of runs to do in a trial to get accurate results. We've teamed up with Dr Katy Hoad and Professor Stewart Robinson of Warwick University to review these methods and develop an optimum approach. Having completed their extensive research their algorithm has now been incorporated into SIMUL8 2008.
It's so simple to use. You just tell SIMUL8 the result you're most interested in and then SIMUL8 automatically does the rest.
Visit Warwick University Research Site for more details.


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SIMUL8 already has an extensive library of icons you can use to customize the look of your simulation. We've extend is further though by adding an additional 400 images.
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Storage Bins have a new Visual Logic event On Expire. If a work item has a shelf life set then when that time passes the On Expire event will run. It runs before the On Exit code so that using the new Visual Logic command Reset Shelf Life you have the opportunity to force the work item to wait for longer in the Storage Bin.
This is really useful if there are multiple causes for a work item expiring from a storage bin or if you want say different resource groups to deal with a work item under different conditions.

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New Visual Logic Commands |
- Get Route Out Percent - Gets % of work items which take a route of a Work Center
- Set Route Arrow Properties - Changes routing arrow logical and display properties
- Set Object Colors - Sets the foreground and background colors for an object in various display modes
- Create Group - Creates a group of simulation objects
- Add to Group - Adds a simulation object to a Group
- Remove from Group - Removes a simulation object from a Group
- Erase Group - Erases a grouping of simulation objects but not the simulation objects themselves
- Rename Group - Renames a grouping of simulation objects
- Set Object Window - Changes the sub-window on which a Simulation Object appears
- Current WI Resources to Sheet - :Copies the current work item's held resources to a sheet
- Groups to Sheet - Sends Group/Object relationships to a SIMUL8 Spreadsheet
- Redimension Array - Programmatically changes array dimension sizes

- Redimension Array and Clear - Programmatically empties an array changes dimension sizes

- Clear Array - empties array of current data

- Concatenate Text Lines - Returns multi line text string from 2 separate lines
- Erase speed list location - Removes an existing list of internal object codes
- Set Resource Label - Sets the label used for selecting required resource type
- Get Chosen Route Out - Gets the number of the route that will be used by the current work item to leave it's current object
- Set Work Center Priority - Sets Work Center Priority system and properties for future work items
- Set Object Memo - Sets a simulation object's memo
- Get Object Memo - Returns current memo of a simulation object
- Set Work Center Exit Priority - Sets where priority is decided for work leaving a blocked work center
- Reset Shelf Life - Resets the shelf life of the currently expiring item. (Shelf life must be determined by label. Only valid during storage bin On Expire logic.)

- Get Simulation Start Date - Get the simulation base calendar date

- Get Group Limit - Gets a group max work item limit
This command is only available with SIMUL8 Professional
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