May 2008

A Keystone in Your Logistics Operation?

Your logistics operation is as complex and as unique as your fingerprint. Where and how does Load Planning fit?

Fitting into a niche is never easy; after all, it’s there for one very good reason: no-one has been able to fill it successfully before. Load Planning and Load Optimization is such a niche: it is usually a detail in a much larger operation, and as such can sometimes have difficulty making it off the starting blocks.

This is not to belittle the potential returns on such a “detail,” however! Efficient load planning can form the keystone of an efficient operation. It helps you plan, save time and streamline an operation in an ever-increasingly competitive business world.

Over the next few weeks I hope to demonstrate why this often overlooked part of your operation should be considered as part of your overall logistics strategy, and how MagicLogic’s flagship Load Planning product, Cube-IQ, can help.

Filling the niche: Small , often overlooked details can still form a keystone component in your operation.

Figure 1. A highly-mixed furniture load run through the Cube-IQ Load Planning software. Improvement over the manual load was 8.4% resulting in a saving of thousands of dollars on the overall shipment. Cube-IQ also ensured that complete furniture sets were grouped, and that fragile items were safely stowed in the top of the container.

So what is Load Planning?

Load Planning encapsulates the process of selecting products, selecting containers, and efficiently combining both into a safe, accurate and cost-effective load. In the simplest case this could be loading a selection of products onto a pellet or into a truck, but the principle extends to complete automation of product and container selection, optimization and even physical loading.

In this blog I will discuss how load planning can fit into an existing logistics operation, and introduce Cube-IQ as a proposed solution or enhancement for your Load Planning requirements.

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If you are looking to contact MagicLogic for more information or license fees, please email them directly from their website at http://www.magiclogic.com

Introducing the Cube-IQ Load Planning SOA

I hope to show you how focus on a Service-Oriented Architecture can directly improve your bottom line, and on the way explain exactly how Cube-IQ can adapt itself to your particular load planning and optimization niche.

But first, what is Service-Oriented Architecture?

The term Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) expresses a perspective of software architecture that defines the use of services to support the requirements of software users. In an SOA environment, resources on a network are made available as independent services that can be accessed without knowledge of their underlying platform implementation.

One of the fundamental design principles that drove development was the requirement to have a Load Planning product that was extremely flexible, customizable and friendly to other systems. The SOA paradigm fits the bill admirably, enabling us to split our systems into a number of “services” each of which perform an essential part of Load Planning, but can be implemented quickly, easily and in either a centralized or distributed way to maximize our fit with any existing systems out there.

The Cube-IQ loading algorithm from MagicLogic Optimization Inc. is already recognized to be the best on the market. Over ten years of continued development have resulted in the most performant algorithm of its kind. Side-by-side tests continue to prove that our system handles the most complex loading rules, provides the most features and above all, loads the most!

Yet its license fees are not prohibitive at all. In fact, in a very short time, Cube-IQ will be paying you back – over and over. We’ll see exactly how presently, but of course first we have to make sure that you can use the system in your existing operation; so: till the next time...

What's so great about MagicLogic's Cube-IQ?

Quite a lot, actually. I put together a checklist of the top must-have attributes for your Enterprise. Let's see how Cube-IQ fits the bill...

Adaptable and Friendly: the Cube-IQ Service Oriented Architecture grew from a simple premise: customers know what they need, and what they need is a system that works seamlessly with what they already have. These requirements can be distilled into a number of core attributes that will make or break your integration project:

Customizable: MagicLogic's business is thriving on the enhancement and tuning of its products to meet customers’ exact requirements.

Flexible: the system you buy needs to be configurable to your needs. Cube-IQ works with you, whether that’s in a WMS/TMS environment, or intense cartonization operations, or the guy on the loading dock scratching his head over a 5,000 SKU order. In each case your unique requirements are met by Cube-IQ’s flexible, intuitive rule set.

Scalable: where do you see yourself in five years’ time? Cube-IQ grows with you. Architecture is specifically designed to fit the bill from a single CPU to a network of super-servers. No additional software is required as you grow your operations. The system is self-tuning, self-balancing and fast.

Easy to implement: You and your team don’t have the time to customize your existing applications to work around new applications. Cube-IQ can be setup to work with any system out there that can generate XML data. Your system integrators will be up and running in a few days with its straightforward yet powerful API.

Easy to look after: Most operations nowadays are 24/7 and expect five nines availability . Downtime must be minimized or obviated where possible. Cube-IQ includes diagnostics and self-monitoring tools. The optimization engine is the enterprise solution you expect, installing as an NT service.

Speaks the right language: Cube-IQ utilizes the industry-standard of XML for data transfer. Of course it also support CSV, XLS, SOAP, SQL and direct API calls. Even the entry-level standalone system is built right around a powerful SQL-compatible relational database.

Portable: Cube-IQ goes with you. Browser-based software to help you work wherever you are. We leverage the power of Sun’s Java to ensure that you can run on any platform too.

Well supported: MagicLogic has been in business since 1995, and has shown consistent growth, year in, year out. MagicLogic provides fast support, regular software updates and a dedicated, professional team.

In summary, Cube-IQ knows its business: your business. This software is a feature-rich product which can adapt to your specific business rules and practices, right out of the box.

Where does Load Planning fit in your Enterprise?

Today we'll take a look at how Load Planning software can work alongside your existing systems. Certainly it is a process that can be applied to a number of stages in order fulfillment. Therefore a good, enterprise-strength Load Planning application must have a rich set of features to support such a diverse selection of requirements. No two operations are ever quite the same, of course, but logistics operations can be broadly split into a number of categories:

1. Order Handling

• Order Taking: pricing, cost estimations, packing lists, improved order fit.
• Order Generation: improve Less-Than-Load quantities, perform fast “what-if” exercises, fill out containers.

2. Order Fulfillment

• Picking: follow warehouse routes, plan routes
• Palletization: build pallets
• Cartonization: picking, packing, e-tailing operations
• Truck / Trailer / Railcar loading

3. Distribution Planning

4. Planning cargo space reservation and usage

5. Warehouse Management (WMS) / Transport Management (TMS)

The Cube-IQ Load Planning engine can already be found built right into leading WMS and TMS systems from such tier 1 providers as HighJump, Swisslog and Visalign.

So, you will find Load Planning requirements in 101 places in the enterprise: on the screen of the person taking an order over the phone, telling the client that more may be ordered for the same transportation cost. The same business then requires the system to actually plan the physical load once the order is completed.

You will also find systems working behind the scenes to help give real-time shipping costs to e-tailers’ clients via their web sites.

Warehouses optimize loads for re-consolidation, and a number of railways' web sites assist the client in reserving the right equipment for a shipment via load planning algorithms.

Freight forwarders optimize loads to arrive at a lower quotation.

And of course, in each case, creation of a successful, efficient, safe load can be a daunting task. Mathematics tells us that there are literally billions of ways to load even just a few products into a container. Factor in possible orientations, stacking rules, weight limits, balance, bracing, safety…

Fortunately, experience and human intelligence guides us in the right direction, but the sheer volume of data which needs to be handled means that this is an ideal job for an intelligent, automated software solution.

All this, and more, is smooth, fast and automated with Cube-IQ.

But Joe on the loading dock…

… does a great job, right?

Sorry Joe… but any good load planning system would be expected to out-perform a manual load by several percentage points. Experience certainly does count for a lot when planning a load, and that’s why we have built years of experience into the Cube-IQ system.

One of the real advantages of load planning software is that you can run many variants of the same load through the system from the comfort of your office chair. You can play around with the numbers, work the system, even move the products around with your mouse until you get everything locked down just right.

Then you click the button and your load report is emailed to head office, your manifest is faxed to your shippers… and your picking list and load plans are wirelessly transmitted to good ol’ Joe’s hand-held down there on the loading dock.

Exploring the capabilities of the Cube-IQ Load Planning product suite.

Today we'll take a close look at the Cube-IQ system, and explain how it can meet your requirements for Load Planning. Let’s start with the basic functions of the system. The following diagram exemplifies the core functionality of Cube-IQ.

A functional view of the Cube-IQ system.

Unique Features

Despite presenting a sleek, simple face to the outside world, Cube-IQ boasts a vast range of abilities under the hood. Over the next few articles I'll briefly describe some of the features which set Cube-IQ above and beyond similar systems. In many cases these features are not simply “better” or more effective than those of the other systems – they are singular to the Cube-IQ system and address requirements that cannot be met anywhere else.

Some Unique Features of the Cube-IQ Load Planning Software (Part One)

Despite presenting a sleek, simple face to the outside world, Cube-IQ boasts a vast range of abilities under the hood. The following sections briefly describe some of the features which set Cube-IQ above and beyond similar systems. In many cases these features are not simply “better” or more effective than those of the other systems – they are singular to the Cube-IQ system and address requirements that cannot be met anywhere else.

Proprietary Loading Algorithms

Central to the system is, of course, the loading algorithm utilized by Cube-IQ. This is a proprietary algorithm developed exclusively by MagicLogic. It is the result of years of experience and intensive research in the field of Combinatorial Optimization.

Already recognized by many leading systems providers and integrators as “best of breed,” you can find our algorithms licensed and built into software provided by many tier 1 logistics service providers, as well as on the desktops and servers in some of the world’s largest operations.

Container Selection, Cartonization

It is perfectly feasible to have Cube-IQ make your container selection automatically, based on criteria of volume, weight and even shipping cost. Simply provide the system with the selection of containers from which to choose, and it will pick the most efficient combination. This is a life-saver in e-tailing for example, where high volume, highly mixed products are to be loaded – a classic cartonization scenario.

Loading Zones

In order to create safe, “do-able” loads, it is important to consider the product we are handling and the transportation medium as a combined whole. This holistic approach leads to a more natural way to work with the system, and tends to help address real-world situations rather than merely solving an abstract mathematical puzzle.

Certainly abstract solutions are not always practical in the real, gritty world. This is why Cube-IQ has numerous features to help present real, practicable, safe solutions.

In this example you can see a typical railcar. The arrows below show how Cube-IQ can be set up to load towards the central door by defining three loading zones. The load will be built so that products are placed in the order dictated by the arrows.

Loading Zones: a Rail Car modeled using three loading zones to ensure the load is built towards the central door.

Door fit is automatically taken into account, as is bracing and roof curvature.

Other benefits of our loading zone approach are significant. You can define weight limits per zone, lock certain products to specific zones, for example perishable goods to a refrigerated area, dangerous goods to safer areas of the container, or (for example) loose cartons close to the container door only.

There is no limit to the number of zones that can be assigned, including overlapping zones in order to model extremely complex and demanding scenarios.

Next time we'll take a look at how Cube-IQ handles products and SKUs - with some pretty fancy loading rules!