First, load the package and instantiate a new simulation environment.
library(simmer)
set.seed(42)
env <- simmer("SuperDuperSim")
env
#> simmer environment: SuperDuperSim | now: 0 | next:
#> { Monitor: in memory }
Set-up a simple trajectory. Let’s say we want to simulate an ambulatory consultation where a patient is first seen by a nurse for an intake, next by a doctor for the consultation and finally by administrative staff to schedule a follow-up appointment.
patient <- trajectory("patients' path") %>%
## add an intake activity
seize("nurse", 1) %>%
timeout(function() rnorm(1, 15)) %>%
release("nurse", 1) %>%
## add a consultation activity
seize("doctor", 1) %>%
timeout(function() rnorm(1, 20)) %>%
release("doctor", 1) %>%
## add a planning activity
seize("administration", 1) %>%
timeout(function() rnorm(1, 5)) %>%
release("administration", 1)
In this case, the argument of the timeout
activity is a function, which is evaluated dynamically to produce an stochastic waiting time, but it could be a constant too. Apart from that, this function may be as complex as you need and may do whatever you want: interact with entities in your simulation model, get resources’ status, make decisions according to the latter…
Once the trajectory is known, you may attach arrivals to it and define the resources needed. In the example below, three types of resources are added: the nurse and administration resources, each one with a capacity of 1, and the doctor resource, with a capacity of 2. The last method adds a generator of arrivals (patients) following the trajectory patient
. The time between patients is about 10 minutes (a Gaussian of mean=10
and sd=2
). (Note: returning a negative interarrival time at some point would stop the generator).
env %>%
add_resource("nurse", 1) %>%
add_resource("doctor", 2) %>%
add_resource("administration", 1) %>%
add_generator("patient", patient, function() rnorm(1, 10, 2))
#> simmer environment: SuperDuperSim | now: 0 | next: 0
#> { Monitor: in memory }
#> { Resource: nurse | monitored: TRUE | server status: 0(1) | queue status: 0(Inf) }
#> { Resource: doctor | monitored: TRUE | server status: 0(2) | queue status: 0(Inf) }
#> { Resource: administration | monitored: TRUE | server status: 0(1) | queue status: 0(Inf) }
#> { Source: patient | monitored: 1 | n_generated: 0 }
The simulation is now ready for a test run; just let it simmer for a bit. Below, we specify that we want to limit the runtime to 80 time units using the until
argument. After that, we verify the current simulation time (now
) and when will be the next 3 events (peek
).
It is possible to run the simulation step by step, and such a method is chainable too.
env %>%
stepn() %>% # 1 step
print() %>%
stepn(3) # 3 steps
#> simmer environment: SuperDuperSim | now: 81.0810054927203 | next: 81.0810054927203
#> { Monitor: in memory }
#> { Resource: nurse | monitored: TRUE | server status: 1(1) | queue status: 2(Inf) }
#> { Resource: doctor | monitored: TRUE | server status: 2(2) | queue status: 0(Inf) }
#> { Resource: administration | monitored: TRUE | server status: 0(1) | queue status: 0(Inf) }
#> { Source: patient | monitored: 1 | n_generated: 7 }
#> simmer environment: SuperDuperSim | now: 81.3761633133839 | next: 81.3761633133839
#> { Monitor: in memory }
#> { Resource: nurse | monitored: TRUE | server status: 1(1) | queue status: 2(Inf) }
#> { Resource: doctor | monitored: TRUE | server status: 1(2) | queue status: 0(Inf) }
#> { Resource: administration | monitored: TRUE | server status: 0(1) | queue status: 0(Inf) }
#> { Source: patient | monitored: 1 | n_generated: 8 }
env %>% peek(Inf, verbose=TRUE)
#> time process
#> 1 81.37616 patient2
#> 2 85.04420 patient4
#> 3 86.20007 patient7
#> 4 86.20007 patient
#> 5 92.41640 patient3
Also, it is possible to resume the automatic execution simply by specifying a longer runtime. Below, we continue the execution until 120 time units.
You can also reset the simulation, flush all results, resources and generators, and restart from the beginning.
It is very easy to replicate a simulation multiple times using standard R functions.
envs <- lapply(1:100, function(i) {
simmer("SuperDuperSim") %>%
add_resource("nurse", 1) %>%
add_resource("doctor", 2) %>%
add_resource("administration", 1) %>%
add_generator("patient", patient, function() rnorm(1, 10, 2)) %>%
run(80)
})
The advantage of the latter approach is that, if the individual replicas are heavy, it is straightforward to parallelise their execution (for instance, in the next example we use the function mclapply
from the parallel) package. However, the external pointers to the C++ simmer core are no longer valid when the parallelised execution ends. Thus, it is necessary to extract the results for each thread at the end of the execution. This can be done with the helper function wrap
as follows.
library(parallel)
envs <- mclapply(1:100, function(i) {
simmer("SuperDuperSim") %>%
add_resource("nurse", 1) %>%
add_resource("doctor", 2) %>%
add_resource("administration", 1) %>%
add_generator("patient", patient, function() rnorm(1, 10, 2)) %>%
run(80) %>%
wrap()
})
This helper function brings the simulation data back to R and makes it accessible through the same methods that would ordinarily be used for a simmer
environment.
envs[[1]] %>% get_n_generated("patient")
#> [1] 8
envs[[1]] %>% get_queue_count("doctor")
#> [1] 0
envs[[1]] %>% get_queue_size("doctor")
#> [1] Inf
envs %>%
get_mon_resources() %>%
head()
#> resource time server queue capacity queue_size system limit
#> 1 nurse 9.245215 1 0 1 Inf 1 Inf
#> 2 nurse 21.688407 1 1 1 Inf 2 Inf
#> 3 nurse 24.345596 1 0 1 Inf 1 Inf
#> 4 doctor 24.345596 1 0 2 Inf 1 Inf
#> 5 nurse 32.129272 1 1 1 Inf 2 Inf
#> 6 nurse 38.898445 1 0 1 Inf 1 Inf
#> replication
#> 1 1
#> 2 1
#> 3 1
#> 4 1
#> 5 1
#> 6 1
envs %>%
get_mon_arrivals() %>%
head()
#> name start_time end_time activity_time finished replication
#> 1 patient0 9.245215 50.77500 41.52979 TRUE 1
#> 2 patient1 21.688407 62.60717 38.26157 TRUE 1
#> 3 patient2 32.129272 77.20804 38.30960 TRUE 1
#> 4 patient0 5.270893 46.77466 41.50377 TRUE 2
#> 5 patient1 18.371185 57.52694 38.15501 TRUE 2
#> 6 patient2 26.639494 74.32213 40.63644 TRUE 2
Unfortunately, as the C++ simulation cores are destroyed, the downside of this kind of parallelization is that one cannot resume execution of the replicas.
You may want to try the simmer.plot
package, a plugin for simmer
that provides some basic visualisation tools to help you take a quick glance at your simulation results or debug a trajectory object: