Right approach to use offset in the source?

[amyhyolee]

[ FlexSim 21.2.4 ]

I've set up patient appointments by putting their reservation times into Time so that patients are created at those times. But I also want to create patients who come early, so I'm thinking of putting an empirical distribution into the offset. Is this the right approach?

[jason_lightfootVL7B4 · Accepted solution]

No that field is just the offset before all the times start. You should use the DateTimeSource activity and the Offset field for each arrival:

[amyhyolee]

@Jason Lightfoot Thank you for your answer.
If you insert -1*Empirical() into 'Offset / Variability', does it mean each generated patient will be created earlier than the given time? And it will vary for each patient, right?

[jason_lightfootVL7B4]

It will be earlier if you give it a negative value. However if that is before the simulation start time then I believe the arrival is discarded so if you want those to be included you should use for example:

Math.max(0, uniform(-10,4,getstream(activity)))

[amyhyolee]

@Jason Lightfoot Does that mean, if the value is negative number it will be set to 0?

[Jeanette_Fullmer]

No, if the value is negative they will arrive that much time before the arrival time. Unless its before the start time of the model.

[amyhyolee]

@Jeanette F Thank you for the clarification!