Supply Chain Editor

By defining standard supply chains (SCCs) and standard disposal chains and assigning them via the decision tree, a basis for defining the individual material flows is already given.
In the supply chain, the concrete material areas and the route and trailer for a route transport must now be defined.
In addition, you can manually adjust the means of direct transport and, if necessary, workers for this transport as well as the parameters (for example, replacement quantity or safety stock).

For general orientation in the submodule Process Chain Editor:

The procedure for defining a BOM item is as follows:

Definition of standard supply chains:

All LGF items are listed on the left side of this Supply Chain Editor view. In this table, all columns from the logistics quantity structure are available for selection and filtering.

The following parameters can be defined in the lower half of the screen:

• Parameters:
  • Initial level, Reorder level , Safety level
  • Initially, the quantities are set on the basis of certain parameters. You can read about these here.
• Boxmatrix
• Rack type: Initially, "no shelf (floor placement)" is entered in this field. However, this value can be adjusted so that the corresponding containers are placed on shelves. It is also possible to place the containers back on the floor if no placement on the shelf is desired.

Definition of disposal chains:

The definition of disposal chains is analogous.

Also in this table, all columns from the logistics quantity structure are available for selection and filtering.

The following parameters can be defined in the lower half of the screen:

• Min. amount of empties
• Max. amount of empties
• Boxmatrix
• Rack type: Initially, "no shelf (floor placement)" is entered in this field. However, this value can be adjusted so that the corresponding containers are placed on shelves. It is also possible to place the containers back on the floor if no placement on the shelf is desired.

Export Materialflow

If you want an overview of all material flows defined in the supply chain editor, you can export the material flow (see 1):

All data for all existing stages of the supply and disposal chains are exported. You also get the following three automatically calculated columns:

Export Route

In the supply chain editor, the routes can be exported in order to track which stops are approached in which order (see 1).

During export, an Excel file is created which contains the following data:

• Names of all routes used in the supply chains
• Relevant tugger types assigned to the routes
• Stop numbers
• Type of stop (source or sink)
• Material areas approached
• Approached stopping points
• Transported LOG-IDs
• Part numbers and part names

Note: Only one line is created for transports of empties; the LOG-IDs are not listed.

Analysis of suppl chain parameters

As of release 2020-11, the stored stock levels of the individual supply chains can be analyzed in the supply Editor (see 1):

For the analysis a further window opens in which all supply chains are listed that have stored parameters that can lead to problems in the order calculation. The following cases are covered:

1. Initial level is lower than the reorder level
   1. Solution: Set the initiallevel to the reorder level
2. Initial level is lower than the safety level (critical)
   1. Solution: Set the initial level to the reorder level
3. Reorder quantity is greater than the stacking factor
   1. Solution: Reduce the replacement quantity to the stacking factor
4. The consumption is greater than the reorder quantity. The consumption is first taken from the LQF via "Parts per product"
   1. Solution: Increase the reorder quantity by one container until the reorder quantity is at least as large as the consumption
5. The reorder quantity is greater than the reorder quantity of the previous stage
   1. Solution: Increase the reorder quantity until it is at least as large as that of the previous stage.
6. Difference between reorder level and safety level is smaller than the consumption
   1. Solution: Increase the reorder evel by the consumption
   2. Soltuon: Increase the initial level level to the reorder level

It is possible to repair supply chains individually (see 1) or collectively all at once (see 2).

Import stock levels

As of release 2020-11, the supply chain editor can be used to import stock and reorder quantities for supply chains (see 1):

Via "Export material flow" (see explanation above) all supply chains are exported with their stock parameters. This file can then be adapted and used to import the stock levels. You can import the initial level, reorder level and safety level. In addition the stacking factor and the box matrix can be imported.
Note: The individual stocks must always be given in whole parts - no decimal numbers are allowed.

Further information about the supply chain - suggestions of the software:

• The user receives a direct proposal for the material area if in the logistics quantity framework in the columns "Material Area 1", "Material Area 2", ... a surface name from the layout is specified. For stage n, the area is displayed that is defined as "material Area n" in the logistics quantity framework for the part number.
• Stopping points are displayed directly to the selected surfaces as soon as the areas for the respective step have been selected. As a prerequisite, however, each material surface must be assigned to at least one breakpoint.
• The default value for reorder quantity and disposal amount is 1.
• The software always suggests 1x1x1 for the matrix of the load carrier/unit.
• The lower fields (load carriers, parts per load carrier, load unit, and parts per load unit) are defined in the logistics quantity framework. Depending on whether a repacking process takes place, for example, "no repacking process" is entered here in conjunction with a 0, or the fields are completely defined when a repacking process takes place.
• If no direct means of transport is entered in the corresponding space for direct means of transport, although this is defined in the standard supply chain, a transport with this means of transport may not be valid due to the restrictions defined in the transport network.

Multiselect in the Supply Chain Editor

For the definition of supply and disposal chains, it is also possible to make assignments using multiselect.

To do this, mark the individual BOM items in the list view. The shift key must also be activated during marking. It is also possible to arrange the log IDs in the list view in ascending or descending order according to the values of the columns. You can also use the Filter icon to filter by specific values.

Fields containing different values are highlighted in purple (see screenshot below).

Supply chains:

Disposal chains:

A blue information button appears for each purple area. If the mouse is moved over this button, an information message appears. There all values are listed (in the screenshot the first stage), which are already assigned there with already defined supply chains.

In addition, when selecting a part group, the associated part numbers are highlighted. The visualization is shown in the following screenshot.

With the help of the visualization it is directly recognizable that changes in values of the parts group affect the assigned part numbers. In this case, these are all blue entries that are assigned to the "Gaspedal" part group.

Visualization of the material flow in 2D

The supply chain editor visualizes the material flow from the source stopping point to the sink stopping point in the 2D layout as the linear air route.

The visualization takes place as soon as at least one supply chain is selected from the list of supply chains (blue background).
This can look like the following: