A conditional route causes entities to choose a routing based on some condition (usually a name or other entity attribute). This is one of the most powerful and diverse routes available in ProcessModel.
Usage
• The name of an entity creates a need to process along a different set of activities. For example Calls are processed one way while Faxes are processed by different activities.
• The process routing changes based on the time of day. If it is before 10:00 PM then one route is followed, but between 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM another route is followed. This time based decision would require that the variable be changed to reflect the time of day. See “Creating User-Defined Variables”.
• The process routing changes based how high a priority, how valuable, if the entity is over due or if it has already been down a route. These entity specific types of decisions would require the creation and assignment of an attribute. See “Creating User-Defined Attributes”.
• The process routing changes based on the number of resources available in process alternatives. Making resource based decisions requires definition of resources and the use of Functions. See “FreeUnits(name of activity or resource)” . Many other model parameters may be checked.
• In a job shop (production facility designed to manufacture a wide variety of products) the number of entities and the potential variation of routings can be overwhelming if conventional model building techniques are used. To simplify the building process, conditional routings may be used at each processing juncture. An attribute may be defined to correspond with each juncture. Instead of many entity types, one entity type can be defined with attributes that tell the entity which route to take at each juncture. Scheduled arrivals are defined with attributes so that the entity “knows” what path to take at each juncture. For more information see Scheduled Arrivals.
Move Time Time to move to the next activity or storage. Any expression is valid.
New Name Optionally assign a new name to the entity. This also assigns a new graphic to the entity if that graphic is defined as an entity on the layout.
An entity can be renamed using either the New Name drop down list in a routing Properties Dialog Box, or the NEWNAME statement in action logic. When renaming, all attributes from the original entity are inherited except the system created attributes ID and Name. The system created attributes which are inherited are Cost, CycleStart, and VATime.
Condition This is the condition for selecting this route (e.g Name = entity name). You may leave the field blank for a single unconditional routing which is equivalent to specifying a 100% routing. Complex expressions are also allowed using AND and OR operators (e.g. Att1 = 2 OR Att1 = 5). Any expression is valid. Valid comparison operators in conditional expressions are as follows:
= equal to
> greater than
< less than >= greater than or equal to
<= less than or equal to
<> not equal to
OR one of or both expressions
AND both expressions
Example
Insurance policies are treated differently if they are valued at less than $10,000. The process is different, expending less resources and time. When policies enter the system they have a field that contains the value of the policy. In ProcessModel this would be an entity attribute . In this example it was called a_Policy_Value. The conditional routes out of the decision are evaluated in the order draw. If the value of the attribute a_Policy_Value is less than or equal to 10000 then the top routing is chosen. If the value is greater than 10000 the bottom route is chosen.
- If one or more Conditional routings are defined together, a conditional routing with the Condition field left blank may be used as a “last resort” routing. This Conditional routing must be the last routing connected to the activity. If none of the conditions in the other Conditional routings are satisfied, the entity will be routed along this “last resort” routing.
Routing Types
The following routing types are available: