journal of public affairs education - NASPAA *The Global Standard ...

Introduction of Government Process Modeling With Rockwell Arena SoftwareFigure 1.Model showing the most commonly used Arena moduleswith students in the lab and in his office. The first two lab assignments wereintended to help students learn how to use the software and to understand themeaning of the various “modules” it generates. (See Figure 1.)As shown in Figure 1, an entire process is composed of multiple (sub)processes that are represented in Arena by labeled rectangles. Sub-processes alsocan be referred to as Activities. A Create module is used to introduce entities(instances of work to be done) either on a schedule or at time intervals, based onan exponential distribution. In Figure 1, each new entity passes through anAssign module, where it can be given attribute values. For example, if the modelrepresents a process within a hospital’s emergency room, the entities entering theprocess are patients, and each patient can be assigned a gender, an age, and aseverity of medical need by use of the Assign module. The Process 1 module inFigure 1 may represent some kind of necessary admissions activity, followed by adecision to be made about each entity as it flows through the system. Some ofthe entities flow out the “True” branch of the Decide module. All others flow outthe “False” branch of the Decide module. Each entity receives some additionalattention, as represented by the Process 2 and Process 3 modules in Figure 1.Finally, every entity must eventually exit the system via a Dispose module.The first lab assignment included specific instructions on how to placemodules on the screen and how to create pathways between them. The intentwas for students to learn to start using the software and to understand the mostbasic Arena modules. (See Figure 2.)The intent of the second lab assignment was for students to learn how to setparameters within the modules of a process model. When one double-clicks ona module in an Arena model, a dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 2. Theuse of dialog boxes eliminates the need for designers to write instructions aslines of programming code. In Figure 2, Process 1 is being made into an actionthat requires “seizing” the full attention of a clerk for at least a half-hour, andthen “releasing” the resource (a clerk) to be available for servicing another entity.The time required for one clerk to perform Process 1 for a particular entity isa triangular distribution, where the minimum required time is 30 minutes, themaximum required time is 90 minutes, and the most likely required time is60 minutes.388 Journal of Public Affairs Education