Creating Groups for direct transport in ipolog Material Flow

As of Release 2019-06, direct transports, such as forklifts, can be planned more precisely in ipolog. There is a module for creating transport groups.
The transportrelation is the basis for creating groups for direct transports.

Background knowledge: What are transportation lanes?

In the material flow planning module, the user can plan his material flow in the hall based on standard supply chains (SVCs).

A transport relationship is created for each direct transport between two areas.

The decisive factors here are the material area and the stopping points of the source and sink.

Create groups

After the supply chains have been planned, all transportation lanes are assigned to the standard group.

The user can now assign all transportation lanes to a new group.

To do this, a new group is created (1) and all relevant material surfaces are filtered at the bottom using the filter (2)/(3).

The user can now select the required transportation lanes by selecting individual transportation lanes using CTRL or multiple selection using SHIFT.

After the selection, the group selected above is assigned (2). The transports can then be recalculated (3).

Calculation of groups

ipolog respects the newly created groups in the tour algorithm.

The transports are calculated separately for each group. All transports are calculated on the basis of the resource type, e.g. high-bay stackers, according to the logic of the direct transport calculation.

Depending on the planning of the groups, additional resources may be required for certain groups, for example. As a result, the total load is reduced.

The groups are now also visible in the transport simulation under "KPI means of transport".

evaluation

After the recalculation you can see the evaluation per group and per day on the right.

To get a group calculation, there must be fulfillable orders in the respective group.

The maximum number of parallel instances for the selected day is displayed for each resource.

For the personnel, the number of instances per shift is calculated as the total.

Utilization is based on all processes of the shipment (driving, loading and unloading, and so on).

Export of worker & resources from group

The right table can be exported as Excel using the Export button. The content is the entire content of the table.

Adding manual workers

For correct planning, for example, you must be able to add the operator type foreman to a group. For this reason, you can manually assign workers to a group.

1. Below the Transportation Lanes table, you can manually add workers for the selected group.
2. Worker type: Can be selected using the dropdown. Only the worker types that do not yet exist in the table (bottom left) are visible. Finally, you can add the worker type on the "Add Worker" button.
3. Thereupon the following view is displayed in the lower left corner, as shown in the attached screenshot:
   • Number of workers of the respective worker type per shift definable via spinbox
   • Button "Delete worker type" in the form of an X at the end of each line of a worker type
4. The manually added workers are taken into account in the group evaluation "Total personnel".

• Problem: If the foremen are simply added to the total personnel, the workload is falsified.
  Current formula: Utilization = worker requirement / total personnel requirement
  
  • Example 1: 14.5 worker requirement, 16 workers rounded, 0 foreman
    -> total personnel requirement = 16 capacity utilization = 90.63
  • Example 2: 14.5 worker requirement, 16 workers rounded, 3 foremen
    -> total personnel requirement = 19 capacity utilization = 76.32
• Solution: Clean up the formula
  Total personnel requirement = workers rounded + foremen
  Utilization = worker requirement / (total personnel requirement - foreman)