I’m quite new on Visual Components and I would like to confirm which is the recommended way to simulate a process.
Based on the information provided on “Introduction to Process Modeling” course you can use the Products / Processes / Flow options under Process tab to define the conections between multiple machines:
On the other hand on “Introduction to Layout Configuration” course the connections are defined through Work Process components and there’s no need to use Process tab anymore:
I understand that the first option is better to simulate simple processes, but when you want to include more resources or to simulate more details the recommended way would be to use the Work Process components (or even Python scripts for additional complexity). Is it possible to mix all these ways of process programming or which approach is recommended?
Thanks in advance and sorry for this newby question!
Process Modeling (PM) is a new large set of native simulation functionality and UI that just saw its first release in VC 4.2.0. The functionality is still a bit limited compared to the Works component library, but it will expand in future releases.
Main goals for PM include being easier to learn, faster to make, understand and edit simulations, much faster simulation runtime performance, and unification of the component library so everything works together seamlessly. Generally, PM aims to gradually replace the separate component libraries such as Machine Tending, Works, and ASRS.
Currently there aren’t that many customization points available in PM functionality since the APIs aren’t made available yet, so if you need to have complex or custom logic in your simulations, the Works library is likely a better choice to use as a base. You can also mix PM and Works to some extent, but note that PM requires use of Products instead of plain components and Works doesn’t know anything about PM concepts.