We’ve touched on the need for resources before when building simulations, namely when your model has capacity issues, such as difficulty meeting staff demands, and in models with some variability, like changes in resources during different shifts throughout the day.

Simul8 offers effective tools for adding and managing resources of work items, via the ribbon, or by simply performing a shift-drag (the same method used to draw routes between objects). But these approaches can be very time-consuming in much larger simulations. A faster, more powerful way to manage all resources in one place comes from using the Resource Assignment Matrix.

As a quick example, let’s look at a car manufacturing plant which makes use of staff resources including fitters, painters and admin staff. Fitters are needed for building the dashboard, wiring the satellite navigation and fitting interiors, painters for the paint procedure, etc.

To quickly link Fitters, Painters and Admin to their corresponding work items, click on ‘Resource Matrix’ in the Objects section of the Data and Rules tab:

This opens up the Resource Assignment Matrix. From here you can experiment with varying numbers of resources for each work item. Each column represents your available resources, in this case staff. Each row represents every activity in your simulation which they can be associated with.

Try using the matrix to speed up your resource allocation. See the outcome of what happens when you set an activity to require more staff than you have available.

For more information on the Resource Matrix, see Simul8’s documentation:

Resource Matrix