Stop Work Immediately

Sometimes a stoppage (or breakdown) occurs in such a way that the Activity concerned will finish work on the items that are currently waiting at the Activity.

At checkouts in a food store customers select the queue to enter, but if the checkout operator's lunch break time comes up while customers are in the Queue, these people are still served before the operator leaves the till.

To simulate this situation switch off the “stop work immediately” check box in the breakdowns / efficiency dialog and switch on the “close feeding Queues” check box. This stops customers entering the Queue until the “breakdown” is over, but lets the Activity continue working on remaining items.

You cannot have both check boxes off at the same time (because then the breakdown would have no effect!).

A Queue will not be closed if it feeds more than one object in your simulation.

In cases where the length of the breakdown is typically short compared to the time it takes to finish processing the Queue, you may want to have the breakdown timed from the moment the last Work Item leaves the Activity (rather than the time the Queue was closed). To achieve this select “Extend Breakdown time by time to process Queue”.