Common Boxes - identical boxes in all parts of ipolog

• Planning State - basis for common boxes

  • A planning state contains all boxes that are to be used together for planning scenarios or within an area in an ipolog project.

  • The names of the containers (per load carrier and per load unit) must be unique.

  • There are two ways to fill the planning state with containers. On the one hand, existing load carriers, load units and boxes can be imported. To do this, they must be saved as a .zip folder. Secondly, containers can be created directly in ipolog using our box editor. When creating containers, it is also possible to fall back on a container geometry, which we provide from our site.

  • For the representation of the containers, you can choose between a table or a grid view, which also contains images of the individual containers. Switching is possible on the right-hand side of the view, under the buttons for importing and creating new containers. In this way, it can be decided individually which view is to be used for planning.

  • Each planning state must be released for other users before it can be used in ipolog.

  • In order to see the changes since the last publication of the planning state , we have integrated an overview with all changes and adjustments in the release dialogue. There, only those containers are listed that have changes. In addition, it is possible to switch to the box editor for each container in order to adjust the changes again before release.

  • In this release dialogue, we have integrated filters to quickly find those containers that are to be analysed again before release.
    Furthermore, we show in the release dialogue which values containers had before deletion.

  • Creating, editing or deleting a planning state as well as creating, importing and releasing containers is only possible for users with the corresponding authorisation. You can find all further information on authorisations here.

• Of course, after selecting a planning state for a scenario and opening the scenario, all containers with the same geometries and display images are displayed in the respective ipolog modules that are contained in the selected planning status.

• In the event of subsequent changes to the contents of a selected planning state of a scenario, information is displayed for the user before the scenario is opened. Here, there is the possibility to either make the changes directly via "Sync now" without reading the changes or to see the changes between the current version of the planning state and the last used plan status of the scenario via "View Details". The differences before and after are displayed and it is possible to search for specific containers.

• Effects on material placement ipolog 4 Workspace:

  • In general there are 3 cases to consider for the placement of  a box and the changes to common boxes: 

    • Box gets smaller:
      The container retains its place. In this case, the container is placed at its previously first point along the pitching edge.

    • Box gets bigger:

      In this case, the container is placed on the Outside Corner Area (OC) if there is no more space available on the material area for this container.
      When opening a scenario, it is also displayed after synchronisation if containers are placed on the OC Area due to changes in the plan level. In this case, the containers have a green hue as their base colour.
      Containers are also placed on the Outside Corner Area as soon as they have collisions with other containers.

    • Box was deleted or is not part of planning state:
      In this case, the container continues to be displayed as dummy geometry. The container can be recognised by the fact that its base colour takes on a pink hue. If dimensions are contained in the imported Excel, they are used as dimensions.
      We have extended the tool tips to recognise this information and have also added a column in the Material Provisioning Editor after the container name to filter for the parts that require a new container assignment.

  • Basically, only the dimensions from the planning state of the container are used if the dimensions are included. The dimensions entered in the import files are not taken into account as soon as the container is included in the planning state.

• When opening the editing view of a scenario, it is possible to change the selected planning state. This allows you to either switch to a completely different planning state or to correct errors in the selection of the planning state for containers.

• Due to the changes to the Common Boxes, we have adapted the examples folder in ipolog 4 Material Flow. The containers can now be found under the folder 9_Common data. In the folder 2_Resources we have removed the load carriers and loading units.

• As the containers are now centrally available for a project through the various plan statuses, it is no longer possible to import them into ipolog 4 Material Flow and ipolog 4 Workspace. We have removed the corresponding options from the software with this release.

• Due to the uniform containers, we have adapted the container attributes for the weight so that only the empty weight and the max. filling weight can be specified. We have removed the previously third attribute - max. total weight - from ipolog.
  Due to this adjustment, we have adjusted the weight restriction check for LMG reimport in ipolog 4 Material Flow so that only the max. fill weight of the container is now used to check whether the weight of a part and the parts per container comply with the container restrictions or not.

ipolog Web-Views

• The column on the left with the project names can be resized by dragging the grey border line to the left or right. This allows the project names to be made invisible or visible.

• We have also adjusted the columns in the scenario view to change their width. In addition, individual columns can be made visible or invisible by using the button in the heading line of the table on the right-hand side of the screen.

• The description added to a project, planning area or scenario is now fully visible when clicking on the entry, despite the limited width of the column.

• Administrators of a system can now also assign administrator rights to other users. There are various gradations here. A user can take on several roles, for example as administrator over a project or as administrator over a system. Further information can be found here.

• In addition, we have taken your feedback on the web interface seriously and have optimised a few small things in the interface. This includes adjusting the filter in the Common Boxes, Scenarios, Projects and Planning Areas views to make filtering even easier.
  In addition to the filters in the individual views, a filter is now also available on the left-hand side to filter by individual projects, so that long scrolling is a thing of the past.
  We continue to look forward to your feedback!

• In addition, we have now made it possible for projects to store and edit descriptions.

• As another minor adjustment, we have improved the display on the admin overviews.

• In addition, it is possible to download planning data from our cloud. The download is available in the "Simulation Game" section.

Known issues:

• In some administrator views, a refresh does not work directly. This can be remedied after a few seconds and reloading the page.

Solved issues:

• After closing a scenario from read-only mode, an error message no longer appears.

New functions in ipolog 4 Material Flow

• Working in route editor:

  • Routes can be marked as visible or invisible. This makes it possible to show more than one route, for example to see on which routes two routes run identically.

  • There is also the option to show all routes at once. This makes it possible to check which routes run on which sections and whether routes still need to be defined for certain sections or whether existing routes need to be adapted.

  • To distinguish the routes, a different colour is suggested for each route when creating a route. These colours can also be changed individually.

  • When displaying one or more routes, the starting point of the route as well as the direction of the route can now be seen. Directly after the starting point of the route, there are two arrows on the route that indicate in which direction the route runs. This is the identification sign for the starting point, which is located directly next to the arrows against the direction of the arrows. This makes it possible to maintain an overview even with a large number of routes.

  • If there are unsaved changes to routes, it is now evident by the route name being written in italics. We have removed the column for this.

  • Furthermore, the entire history of a route can now be deleted at once without losing the settings such as name or tug. This makes it possible to make changes to the route more quickly.

• Often, unused breakpoints could no longer be removed because a route ran over that breakpoint. We have now made this possible. The breakpoint can be deleted even if a route runs over it. To avoid making changes to the transport network or changing route restrictions, a waypoint is now placed at the location of the breakpoint. If the breakpoint was previously used in the process chains, this is of course also updated directly by us and the breakpoint is removed from the process chains.
  However, deleting the breakpoint remains impossible if the breakpoint describes the starting point of a route.

• The route evaluation now also has information about how many tours are carried out via which route and from which means of transport. This number is available on the one hand for the entire day and on the other hand per shift.

• When defining route restrictions in the route network, the assignment of transport restrictions such as speed or means of transport has become much more efficient through a multi-select of different route connections.

• Further:

  • In the export of the transport list, the tractor instance is now also entered for the tractors. This makes it easier to reconstruct the transport results.

  • In the installation folder of ipolog 4 Material Flow, the options "switchToHardwareRendering" and "switchToSoftwareRendering" are now located analogous to ipolog 4 Workspace. This makes it possible to use ipolog with the SoftwareRendering option even on less powerful computers.

  • In the title bar of the ipolog application, the name of the open system can now be found in addition to the project, planning area and scenario name - so integration and productive systems no longer get mixed up.

  • We have again optimised the connection check in ipolog when the computer is restarted from sleep mode and ipolog has been open on the computer. This means that work can be continued directly after logging into ipolog.

Known issues:

• The weight of empty containers is currently not included in the export of the transport list.

• In some cases, after adjusting the assignment of bundle chains, the material faces of disposal chains are not updated correctly.

• After some actions, the status of the bundle chain in the process chain editor is no longer updated correctly when the assignment of a breakpoint to a material surface is removed.

• During LMG reimport, not all information of the bundler is always updated. This can be remedied by reimporting the LMG.

• In the process chain editor, the display of the selected direct transport means is incorrect when using multiselect and path restrictions.

• When removing a layout level, the standard supply and standard bundle chains are currently missing in the security question.

• After changing the direct transport means in the standard process chains, the manually assigned direct transport means are also overwritten in the process chains if the request is confirmed with "No".

• The path restrictions cannot be changed if connections are automatically separated by breakpoints.

• Also, the undo/redo in the path network editor does not work in certain individual cases.

• There is a crash after deleting a shift from the assigned shift plan when directly calculating the transports afterwards.

• In the waypoint analysis there is no evaluation in the table in certain cases if the period is set to "whole day".

• In trailer capacity planning, the discard button does not work for the dynamic calculation.

• In the route evaluation there is an error in the calculation of the maximum weight in certain edge cases.

   

Solved issues:

• In the supply chain editor, the shortest path for direct transport means is displayed again in the 2D view.

• For undefined disposal chains of a supply chain, the status of the supply chain is now updated correctly again.

• There is no longer a crash when a new route is created and discarded and then a new hauler is created.

• In the transport simulation, the earliest and latest staging time is again calculated correctly in all cases when safety stock and reorder level are the same.

• The decision tree is now updated correctly again after various actions.

• After changing the shift plan, the time on the slider and in the Gantt is now displayed correctly again in the transport Gantt.

• Switching to another submodule is no longer possible when calculating orders.

• Deleting the description of a worker in the resources no longer leads to a removal of the worker in the route editor.

• After discarding in the shift plan, the changes are now discarded completely and correctly.

• After deleting a bundle chain, there is no longer a crash when switching to another submodule.

• In certain individual cases, a crash occurred after importing a layout from the 4MF package. We were able to fix this crash successfully.

• The material areas from the logistical quantity structure (LMG for short) are now correctly entered in the respective supply chains after import and direct filtering via the decision tree.

• The function "Analyse supply chains" is now fully available again in the supply chain editor.

• In trailer capacity planning, there is no longer a crash after discarding and then saving.

• When changing a container of a bundler, it is now also correctly displayed again in the transport simulation.

• After editing the shift plan, transport orders can be calculated again.

• In the Transport Gantt and in the KPI Transport Means, there were different values for the calculation of the utilisation per day. We have adjusted the calculation in the Transport Gantt so that the calculation is now analogous to the KPI Means of Transport.

• There is no longer a crash when an additional worker is added and then a change is made to the transport calculation.

• There was an error in the transport calculation when a shift went into the next day for a short period of time. We were able to fix this problem successfully.

   

   

New functions in ipolog 4 Workspace

• In the Material Provisioning Editor, we have taken a close look at the selection and input options for setting parameters and have significantly optimised the performance when selecting these and updating in the respective areas.

• We are Connected - Microstation Connect can be used for the Microstation Plugin

  • The Microstation Plugin is now also available for the Microstation version Connect. All previous functions are fully available. This includes transferring the layout to Microstation and from Microstation to ipolog. Importing containers and shelves as well as deleting the placement in Microstation and transferring it. Environmental geometries (facilities) can also be transferred from Microstation to ipolog.

  • In addition to the previous functions, the Microstation plug-in has been expanded to include the following functions for more consistency:

    • The layout elements Tool Points, Zone Anchor, Worker Points, Working Points and BuildingAxis can now also be transferred from ipolog to a Microstation file.

    • It is now also possible to transfer individual Working Areas and Conveyor Areas from ipolog to Microstation in order to have an overall picture of the areas created in ipolog in the Microstation layout. When changing the position of the areas, this also has an effect on the display in ipolog during a return transfer.

• We have extended the Material Zone Report so that, in addition to the previous information, it is also possible to see which shelf is currently shown and which dimensions a shelf has (new unit is mm). Further adjustments in this view was the extension of the table on the right side. Here you can now find, for example, the dimensions of a container as well as the box matrix. We have also added another table for shelves to accurately track the dimensions of the shelf level.

• As part of our work on the Common Boxes, we have also adapted the catalogue in ipolog 4 Workspace so that names with up to 100 characters can now be read without any problems.

• In the title bar of the ipolog application, the name of the open system can now be found in addition to the project, planning area and scenario name - so integration and productive systems no longer get confused.

• In the layout editor, the editing window for surfaces can now be moved so that it no longer covers surfaces when revising. In addition, this window is displayed by default in the area on the left side of the layout editor.

Known issues:

• In certain cases, a crash occurs when a container is dragged and dropped from the catalogue.

• In some cases there are problems when importing dgn files via the plugin.

• When assigning a shelf that is too small via the Catalog or the Material Provisioning Editor and the "Use Outside Corner" function is deactivated, containers disappear and there is a crash.

• In the Material Zone Editor there is a display error when fixing grouped parts.

• The number of production orders to be considered cannot be defined.

• In the Rack Planogram there can be problems when rotating the bins and "push box together" function is not correct.

• In the Material Provisioning Editor, the shelf name is not entered after each update.

• The Material Zone Report (Custom Reporting) is currently not available, instead the Material Zone Report can be used. All information is contained here.
  Please note that the Material Zone Report only shows the Material Areas and the material placed on them and not the Outside Corner Areas.

• Changes to the container stretching with subsequent import are currently not taken over immediately. This can be remedied by Renew Placement via File Menu → Material.

• In the case of rotated surfaces, the dimensions for length and width in the view do not match the actual dimensions.

• In the Production Flow View there can be a crash when referenced facilities are activated/deactivated.

Solved issues:

• In the case of duplicated surfaces, the rotation of the duplicated surface is adopted in the Layout Editor in the same way as the original surface.

• For containers, the thumbnails are now fully displayed in the catalogue again.

• Facilities inserted via dwg are no longer displayed with a colour gradient in the Layout Editor.

• After a scenario change, the data of the previously opened scenario is no longer visible.

• When creating a dummy material in the Material Provisioning Editor and selecting a non-existing material area, there is no longer a crash.

• In the Material Zone Excel Report, the product variant is displayed again for containers on the floor.

• In the Layout Editor, after renaming material areas, the names are completely updated again.

• In the TagListEditor, filtering by ToolPoints is available again.

• In the Layout Editor, surfaces can now be selected again if they are enclosed by other polygon surfaces.

• The settings in the Conveyor Editor are no longer lost after importing the Montage Excel.

• The times for zooming in the Layout Editor have been reduced significantly. Now it should be quick again with large facilities.

• Imported facilities (via .dwg file) can now be viewed in all 2D views according to the defined rotation.

• In the Options view, the distances for containers after opening a scenario are the same as before.

• After the import, facilities can be set for active use again directly via the "insert" button. There is no longer a crash.

• In the case of a rotated station, surfaces can be selected directly without clicking on offset.

• In the Material Zone Excel Report, the entire layout is now displayed again in the overview page.

• In the Material Zone Editor, a collision is no longer created when containers are rotated.

• A name of a material zone that has been deleted can now be assigned again for another material zone.

• The Cancel button when loading a scenario is now fully available again to exit the scenario.