Seeing the end result isn’t always the whole picture. Sometimes what happens at specific times during the simulation is important to your decision making too. In SIMUL8 you can pinpoint exact moments in time and look at them in detail.

Why would you want to?

Three reasons. First, for understanding. One of the great benefits of simulation is visualization. Watch the simulation and re-run critical time periods to better understand the dynamics of what is happening in your process.

Being able to visualize these exact moments in time will allow you to see small changes in your process that might be causing the larger problem you are trying to solve.

Second, validation. To validate your simulation is acting as you’d expect,like your process in the real world. Re-run key time periods, stop, examine the results then run it again.

Thirdly, efficiency. It’s quicker than resetting and re-running your simulation.

How do you do it?

Click the drop down button next to ‘Step’ button on the main ribbon. You get the options to go forward or back 1 minute or 10 minutes.

Or you can choose to go back to a specific point in time, using Go to Simulation Time (click the drop down button under the ‘Run’ button). Just enter the time you would like to go to into the option box and you will be taken to that exact moment.

But don’t forget…

To re-run with different random numbers to make sure what’s happening isn’t just a one off.
Random numbers are used to make simulation vary like real world systems.If you keep them constant, you can make changes and know the changes, not the numbers cause the different results.

Finally, before you decide on your solution you should change your random numbers to introduce some variability. Think of it like trying your solution out on a different day, you need to make sure your solution works on a rainy or a sunny day.