Baking at a Muffin Shop

Muffin Shop: Make some muffins before the shop opens. When the shop opens, bake only when you have a certain number of muffins left.

0. There are two items in this model: Muffin and Muffin Batch. A Muffin Batch contains 12 Muffins.

1. Generate Your Initial Batches. This Demand Block creates Muffin Batches. It has a "End Demand Time At" option set to 90, which prevents new Muffin Batches from being created after 90 minutes. This is how we will bake some muffins before the opening of the shop.

2. Make your Muffins. This section is the actual baking of your Muffin Batch. You mix the batter and put it in the oven.

3. Break a Muffin Batch into 12 Muffins. This Split Block breaks the Muffin Batch so that each Muffin can be consumed individually.

4. Store Muffins for Customers to Purchase. This Pull Block (4a) stores the muffins for customers to consume. When this block gets down to 12 muffins (as set in the parameters of this block), it will trigger a new batch of muffins to be baked at the beginning of the process (4b).

5. Customers purchase muffins. By putting it at the end of the process, this Demand Block is in pull mode. We have parameters that indicate we purchase a muffin every minute, but we also do not start demand until 120 minutes into the simulation.

In this model we both have demand at the front and at the back, Push and Pull. You can run through the process based on the chef's decision, but then continue the process based on the customers' decisions (or purchases). In addition, using Start Demand Time At and End Demand Time At parameters in a Demand Block helps control when a block is "on" or "off."