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Exercise: Mitigate violations with relationship groups

This exercise picks up where Module 6 left off. There you imported a project full of violations and explored why each one occurred — and most traced back to facilities that operate together being treated as unrelated. Here you'll clear a large share of those violations at once by defining relationship groups, assigning facilities to them, and letting the build generate the correct relationships. No geometry changes, no explosive changes — just relationships.

Learning objectives

By the end of this exercise you should be able to:

  • Create relationship groups and author the Group × Group criteria matrix
  • Assign facilities to groups in bulk with Relationship Group Assignment
  • Build relationships from the matrix with one click from the map's Analysis menu and confirm the violation count drops

Prerequisites​

1. Start from the Module 6 project​

If you still have the Module 6 project open, keep working in it. Otherwise, import the same dataset and run analysis again so you're looking at the full set of violations:

Download the sample project (.siter-snapshot)

See How to import a project, then run an analysis and confirm the project still shows many violations.

2. Create four relationship groups​

  1. Click apps Add/Edit in the toolbar and select Relationship Group Editor
  2. Click Add Group and create four groups (see How to add a relationship group):
    • Line 1
    • Line 2
    • Line 3
    • Storage

3. Author the matrix​

In the editor, for the project's criteria, set every cell so each group is Same Operating Line with itself and Related to all the others (see How to author the relationship matrix):

Line 1Line 2Line 3Storage
Line 1Same Operating LineRelatedRelatedRelated
Line 2RelatedSame Operating LineRelatedRelated
Line 3RelatedRelatedSame Operating LineRelated
StorageRelatedRelatedRelatedSame Operating Line

The diagonal is Same Operating Line; everything off the diagonal is Related.

4. Assign facilities to the groups​

Use bulk editing to assign each facility to its group:

  1. Click apps Add/Edit > Bulk Edit > Relationship Group Assignment (see How to assign features to groups in bulk)

  2. Select the facilities in the footbar and apply the group:

    GroupFacilities to assign
    Line 1Line 1, Line 1 Mixer
    Line 2Line 2, Line 2 Mixer
    Line 3Line 3, Line 3 Mixer
    Storageevery AGM and ECM

  3. Save

tip

For the Storage group, use the footbar's column filter or search to select all the AGM and ECM facilities at once rather than clicking them one by one.

5. Build the relationships​

  1. Close the editor if it is still open
  2. Click the check/calculate Analysis button in the toolbar and select Build Relationships (see How to build relationships from the map)
  3. Watch the toolbar: the spatial analysis runs first, then a Build: indicator appears beside the Analysis button while Siter generates one relationship per pair from the matrix
  4. When the indicator disappears, open the Relationship Group Editor and click View Report to check for conflicts — with this matrix there should be none
tip

You can also build from inside the editor: click Re-run Spatial Analysis in the banner, then Build Relationships in the footer (see How to build relationships from the matrix). The Analysis menu item does both steps for you.

6. Re-run analysis and check the result​

  1. Run a full analysis

  2. Open Analysis Results and filter to Violations

  3. The violation count should drop sharply: pairs that were treated as unrelated (and analyzed at IBD) are now related or sameline within the operation (ILD), which most of these pairs comfortably satisfy

Compare your project against the finished version if you want to check your work:

Download the finished project (.siter-snapshot)

Discussion​

A single, well-structured pass — four groups, one matrix, one build — resolves the bulk of the violations you cataloged in Module 6, without moving a single facility. That is the point: most early-stage violations are data-completeness issues, and relationship groups are the most efficient lever for fixing them at scale.

Which violations look like they could also use some relationship tuning? Which appear to be legitimate now? How would you address the ones that appear legitimate?