Purpose: Stocks are accumulations. They collect whatever flows into them, net of whatever flows out of them.
Selection and Placement:
Select the stock icon by clicking once on the icon in the Building Block palette.
Move the mouse to the desired location on the diagram.
Click once to deposit the stock.
Notes: The default stock type is the Reservoir. Think of a Reservoir as a pool of water, or as an undifferentiated pile of "stuff." A Reservoir passively accumulates its inflows, minus its outflows. Any units which flow into a Reservoir will lose their individual identity. Reservoirs mix together all units into an undifferentiated mass as they accumulate.
The default, Reservoir, stock type is signified by a simple rectangle. To select a conveyor, sub-model, queue, or oven, click and hold the stock icon on the palette. Then, select the appropriate stock type from the drop-down list that appears.
Surface Operations: Figure 4-11 details surface operations which
may be performed on a stock.
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Figure 4-11 |
Mapping Dialog Operations: When you open a Stock in the Mapping
mode, you'll enter its Mapping dialog. Figure 4-12 details the operations
within this dialog.
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Figure 4-12 |
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Modeling Dialog Operations: In the modeling mode, the Reservoir
dialog sports additional controls. These are identified and described
in Figure 4-13.
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Figure 4-13 |
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Reservoir Dialog Notes:
The expression in the equation box provides an initial value for the stock, and is evaluated only at the outset of a simulation run.
It is possible to generate an initial value for Reservoirs via a link from another application. On the Macintosh using System 7, you can use Publish & Subscribe. On Windows, you can use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE). See Importing and Exporting Data for details on Publish & Subscribe and DDE.