Factory Explorer^® Technical Alert #25
For All Users of Factory Explorer^® v2.6

Summary: When a non-US installation of Windows^TM 95/98/NT is used in conjunction with a non-US version of Office 2000, a run-time error occurs when Factory Explorer® tries to write the various intermediate files used as input by the analysis engine (Note: This problem has not been replicated on non-US versions of Office 97).

Details: Once a user has built a model within Factory Explorer®'s Excel interface and chooses to run a capacity and/or simulation analysis, Factory Explorer¬ creates a number of intermediate ASCII flat-files that serve as input into Factory Explorer®'s core analysis engine. Typically, the data inside of these intermediate files is comma-separated or delimited (i.e. all data fields are separated by a comma). Some non-US versions of Windows^TM 95/98/NT use a semicolon (;) as the default list separator. It appears that within non-US versions of Windows^TM 95/98/NT, when using Office 2000, the default list separator written into the Factory Explorer¬ intermediate files is the semicolon (;), rather than the comma (,). Therefore, instead of the expected comma (,) separator being present within the intermediate files, the default semicolon separator is used in these files, causing Factory Explorer® to cease program execution. This problem does not seem to exist within non-US versions of Office 97.

Workaround: This problem can be remedied by opening the Control Panel, then selecting Regional Settings. On the Number tab, simply change the default list separator from (;) to (,) and Factory Explorer® will execute properly. This will ensure that a comma is used as the default delimiter in the Factory Explorer® intermediate files.

Techalert tafx25-9911

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