Arena 16.2 Features

AVAILABLE NOW!

Why Arena 16.2?

  • Animate Bar
  • New Model Statistics (Excel Report Spreadsheet)
  • Multiple Instance Support
  • Template Updates
  • Usability Enhancements
  • New SMARTs
  • Multi-Processing Support

What's New?

Animate Bar

Arena's interface has been updated to include a new 'Animate Bar' window.  This bar displays the current status of all model objects that may be animated in the model window.  It also displays a list of select animation items placed in the model window.  The bar can be used to quickly add animation to a model as well as find animation objects placed in the model window. See Animate Bar for more detail.

 

Model Statistics (Excel Report Spreadsheet)

Arena now stores model statistics in an SQLite database and generates an Excel workbook which displays model results. This workbook contains the following worksheets/tabs:

ProjectInformation - Parameters for all projects in a model

AcrossReplicationsSummary - Summary of all statistics across all replications

DiscreteTimeStatsByRep - Discrete-time statistics (Tally) by replication

ContinuousTimeStatsByRep - Continuous-time statistics (Time persistent) by replication

CounterStatsByRep - Counter statistics by replication

OutputStatsByRep - Output statistics by replications

FrequencyStatsByRep - Frequency statistics by replication

See Model Statistics for more detail.  The Crystal Reports (Category Overview, Category by Replication, etc.) are no longer available.

 

Multiple Instance Support

Arena now supports launching multiple application instances. There must be an available development or runtime license for each instance launched and the feature must be enabled in File>Options>Settings page.

 

Template Updates

Several template modules have been updated for improved functionality:

Decisions template Remove module - The Remove module includes a new field named 'Number of Entities'. This field, which defaults to 1, is used to specify the number of entities to be removed from the queue.  See the Remove module for more detail.

Discrete Processing template Seize module - The Seize module includes new fields used to specify a capacity for a queue; if a capacity is defined, the corresponding balking label will determine where entities are directed when the queue has reached its maximum capacity. See the Seize module for more detail.

Input Output template Change State module - The Change State is a new module that can be used to easily update the state of a resource in your model logic.  See the Change State module for more detail.

 

Usability Enhancements

The model window's right (mouse) click menu now includes 'Connect' and 'Enable Connect Mode' to easily add a single module connection or to place multiple connections in a single drawing session.

A new switch has been added to the SIMAN command line processor; -nodb which disables the generation of the report database.

Retired Items

As Arena evolves and as technology dictates, obsolete or little-used features will be removed from Arena. This involves thorough evaluation of how the proposed changes may affect our customers and whether alternatives within Arena are available. This will provide us greater flexibility in the development process and allows us to develop necessary enhancements. The following items will be retired from Arena in current and future releases:

For the Arena 16.2, the following items have been retired:

Crystal Reports - The eleven reports (Activity Areas, Category Overview, Category by Replication, etc.) have been replaced with the Model Statistics Excel based report.

Access Report database - The Access report database has been replaced with a SQLite report database.

Export/Import Model to/from Database...

Export Summary Statistics to CSV File...

Module Data Transfer (Wizard)

The File > Close command  - This command has been removed.  To close the Arena application, use the Close button in the upper right corner of the application window.

In case you missed it, you can check out the full list of new features from v16.1.