Jump to content

FlexSim

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 213.123.174.207 (talk) at 14:30, 4 April 2011 (→The Company and history). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

FlexSim
Developer(s)FlexSim Software Products, Inc.
Stable release
5.0 / April 15, 2010 (2010-04-15)
Operating systemWindows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7
LicenseProprietary
WebsiteFlexSim product page

FlexSim is a discrete event manufacturing simulation software developed by FlexSim Software Products, Inc. The FlexSim family currently includes the basic FlexSim simulation software and three product lines facing different customers established upon the basic FlexSim, including the FlexSim distributed simulation system (FlexSim DS), FlexSim container terminal library (FlexSim CT) and FlexSim Healthcare Simulation (FlexSim HC). It uses OpenGL environment to realize real-time 3D rendering and it is declared to be the only simulation software that incorporates C++ IDE and compiler in the graphic modeling environment.

The Company and history

FlexSim was founded in 1993 by Bill Nordgren (Co-Founder Promodel Corporation, 1988), Roger Hullinger, and Cliff King, originally under the name F&H Simulations, Inc. F&H Simulations sold, supported, and conducted training courses for Taylor II simulation software [1] – owned and developed by Holland's F&H Simulation B.V (F&H Holland). In 1998, F&H Holland developed the first generation 3D object oriented simulation engine Taylor ED (Enterprise Dynamics). F&H Simulations assisted with the development of robust objects for use in Taylor ED. In 2000, F&H Holland was acquired. F&H Simulations became independent and continued by Dr. Eamonn Lavery and Anthony Johnson. F&H Simulations, Inc. changed its name to FlexSim Software Products, Inc. and started to develop its own 3D simulation software, known now as FlexSim [2]. FlexSim 1.0 was released in February 2003. The software is constantly updated since then. The most recent of FlexSim release is version 5.1.2 released on February 1, 2011. As highly customized application oriented package, FlexSim CT was developed for operation in container terminal and released in 2006. Afterwards, FlexSim DS was developed for distributed simulation system, mainly serving for military and FlexSim HC was developed for healthcare simulation.

Application and Uptake

As general purpose simulation software, FlexSim is widely used in many fields:

  • Manufacturing [3]: Production assemble line,
  • Logistics and distribution [4]: Container terminal operation, supply chain design, distribution center work flow, service and storage layout, etc.
  • Transportation [5]: Highway system traffic flow, transit station pedestrian flow, maritime vessel coordination, custom traffic congestion, etc.
  • Others: Oil field or mining process, networking data flow [6], etc.

FlexSim is used by many large companies engaged in simulating in different applications. The firms, including manufacturing companies, such as Coca-Cola, Volkswagen, Boeing, Michelin, etc., logistic companies, such as FedEx, DHL, APM Terminals, etc., transportation companies, such as Norfolk Southern, etc, and many others.

Object Oriented

FlexSim uses object oriented design as its software structure, and the FlexSim objects [7] are defined and programmed in four classes: fixed resource class, task executer class, node class and visual object class.

  • Fixed resource class: this is the major objects of the simulation and determines the flow of the simulation model, including source, queue, processor, sink, conveyor, etc.;
  • Task executer class: the objects inherited from this class obtain tasks from the objects inherited from fixed resource class and assign the tasks to other objects, including operator, transporter, etc.;
  • Node class: the objects inherited from this class are used to design the working route of objected inherited from task executer class, including network node and traffic control;
  • Visual object class: the objects inherited from the class are used to display and collect the input/output message, icon, diagram and tables.

User can build the model by dragging and dropping the abstracted predefined 3D objects from different classes to layout, link and functionalize the model. For the senior users, the entire dragging and dropping procedures can be realized and the object parameters and behaviors can be modified using both FlexScript and C++ programming languages[8] .

Expertfit comes bundled with Flexsim

The "ExpertFit" Distribution-fitting software was developed by Dr. Averill M. Law, who is widely recognized as one of the world's foremost authorities on simulation and distribution fitting.

ExpertFit has the most comprehensive set of features:

  • Allows you to use 40 different distributions.
  • Provides more than 30 high-quality graphs and four technically correct goodness-of-fit tests.
  • Allows multiple distributions on a plot.
  • Batch-mode capability for analyzing a large number of data sets.

Expertfit is included free with every full Flexsim license.

See also

References

  1. ^ William B. Nordgren. "Taylor II manufacturing simulation software". In Proceedings of the 27th Conference on Winter Simulation, IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, 401–404, 1995.
  2. ^ FlexSim online company history website
  3. ^ Erol Gelenbe, Hatim Guennouni, "FlexSim: A flexible manufacturing system simulator", European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 53, Issue 2, July 25, 1991, Pages 149–165.
  4. ^ Liu, Miaomiao; Dong, Mingwang (2008). "The Simulation Technology of Port Container Logistics System on Flexsim". ASCE Conference Proceeding 330: 2547–2552. doi:10.1061/40996(330)376.
  5. ^ Wang Weiping, Zhao Wen, Zhu Yifan and Hua Xueqian, "Survey on the Object oriented Simulation Method", Journal of National University of Defense Technology, 1999-01.
  6. ^ Pierre G. Paulin, Faraydon Karim and Paul Bromley, "Network Processors: A Perspective on Market Requirements, Processor Architectures and Embedded S/W Tools", Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, p. 0420, 2001.
  7. ^ Garrido, Joés M. (2009). Object Oriented Simulation. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4419-0515-4.
  8. ^ William B. Nordgren. “Flexible simulation (Flexsim) software: Flexsim simulation environment”, Proceedings of the 35th conference on Winter simulation: driving innovation, 2003.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=FlexSim&oldid=422321984"