simulator

well Will, strangely i have gotten access to SPSS, and even MATLAB. since it is a school project we are doing in one year ie spread across two semesters. we are in the first semester.

this is how the program works.

as customers come into the bank they prompt the simulator program that they are in the bank. we i am trying to use the time code (as the time they got into the bank ) as their unique code. clock(). then the program uses the timecode to time them as they are in the queue. after every minute every one in the queue has his time updated. when a server is free and the quueue is not empty, the first in the queue moves to the free server to be served. at the servers desk, the program stops the custmer's waiting time and starts the custmer's transaction time. at the end of the transaction the program is prompted and the the transaction time is stopped. this process continues until everyone in te queue is served. at the end of simulation, these values should be fed into a modeller ie SPSS/MATLAB/any other, and modelled in the form of a graph.

the problems i am facing now is how to get the customers to prompt the program when they join the queue. an infra red sensor is not the best because the program would only know that some one joined the queue but who exactly? (customer N). also i do not want to bother the servers behind the desk as they are already have too much ontheir hands to take care off. so something must prompt the program that customer N has reached the transaction desk and is about to be served.

next problem is that how do i create the timer to time the program which time customer N came into the bank, after every second it should update each custmer in queue's waiting time, thread in between each part of the simulation, ie arrivalEvent, QueueingEvent , TransactionEvent, Departure event in the same program as some can happen at the same time and lastly what tools in the programming language to used to delay ie to get the program to last for sTime, update waiting time after each second etc.

if you do have any ideas i would love if you could help.