3D Placement Load Configuration Available for Ground and Ocean FCL Consols

This feature extends the planning capabilities for both Ground and Ocean FCL Consols to include the option of using 3D Load Configuration in the planning process.  

In the example below, the Ground Consol Shipment has been planned with 3D Based Load Configuration setup.  

Ground Consol with 3D Configured

The Ground Consol related to the shipment above is provided below.

Ground Consol Setup

Running a Bulk Plan for a set of orders that are for the Ground Consol Shipment above, with the Bulk Plan parameters and logic configuration sets to consider 3D Load Configuration, the Ground Consol Shipment is loaded using the 3D Load Configuration logic, as shown below using the Edit Load Config View.

Edit Load Config - Ground Consol Shipment

Check the Tips & Considerations section below for information on how replanning is handled.

This feature will improve your equipment utilization and overall solution quality for your Ground and Ocean FCL planning scenarios that require the item placement based abilities provided by the 3D Load Configuration option. 

Steps to Enable

To take advantage of this functionality - in addition to having an available /configured Ground Consol or Ocean FCL Consol, you will also need to have your CONTAINER OPTIMIZATION Logic Configuration configured with the USE 3D BASED LOAD CONFIGURATION set to true along with providing the necessary orientation and loading information for your packaged items and/or transport handling units. 

Tips And Considerations

Assuming you wish to add or change the order releases (or order movements) on an existing Consol as part of a subsequent Bulk Plan run, the set of orders selected for the subsequent Bulk Plan (replan) must include all of the orders currently planned on your Consol, plus the additional orders you would like to consider.  If you attempt to run a Bulk Plan and only select a subset of the orders already planned on the Consol, the selected subset of orders will be unscheduled in the Bulk Plan.  In the example below, in the first plan five orders are selected and planned together, in the subsequent plan a subset (four) of the orders are selected, the result is that the subset of orders selected are unscheduled.  If you want to add orders to your already partially full Ground or Ocean FCL Consol using 3D, you need to select the set of orders already on the Consol plus the additional orders to consider.  

Five Orders Planned

In a subsequent Bulk Plan run - below, if you only select four of the original five order releases, the four selected order releases will end up as unscheduled order movements.  If the desire is to only plan the four order releases, then the original 5 order releases should be unscheduled and the four orders releases that are to be planned should be planned together.  If you wish to add to the Consol, the five orders plus any additional orders to be considered should be added to the Bulk Plan.

Subsequent Bulk Plan with Partial Order Selection

The 3D Placement setup for Consols - (Ground and Ocean FCL) will replan the Consol by emptying the related equipment as part of the replan.   This means that the position of the items loaded in previous runs will not be fixed in subsequent planning runs, in order for the system to develop the best placement solution, the equipment is "emptied" and then replanned to determine the best placement for all the items being considered.  

In the example below, there are four orders to be planned.  In the first Bulk Plan run three orders are planned and are loaded into the Ground Consol - as shown below.   In this example, the second order loaded in this plan is LC3 - as shown below.

Three Orders - First Ground Consol Load Config Solution

 In the second Bulk Plan run below, the same three orders from above have been included in the plan, plus a forth order - LC2.  Note below that in the second plan, considering the four orders, the fourth/new order included, LC2, is now occupying the position that LC3 occupied in the first solution (above), demonstrating the fact that plan reconsidered the placement of all the orders versus appending to the existing solution.

Four Orders - Second Ground Consol Load Config Solution