Planning Loads

When you plan a road freight order on a box truck, trailer, or semi-trailer, the system considers capacity restrictions regarding the height, width, length, and weight of the loading space. The same capacity restrictions also apply to planning a trailer unit on a trailer or semi-trailer. It also takes into account the maximum axle load of your box truck. Furthermore, in the system, you can add a split deck to your trailer or semi-trailer and plan two decks. When you plan a container unit on a container, the system also considers capacity restrictions in terms of the height, width, and length of the loading space, as well as the total and empty weight of the container. In both the transportation cockpit and the freight order, you can check the results of load planning as a 3D load plan or a table load plan in the form of a list of business document items. In the 3D load plan, you can show or hide individual objects and entire rows, columns, or stacks. The systems also provide information about the loading space's current load distribution and utilization.

The load plan is the result of load planning. It provides an overview of the current loading space available for transporting a business document. In both the transportation cockpit and the business document, you can display the complete load plan as a 3D or table load plan of business document items. You can show and hide grid lines in your decks in the 3D load plan. You can also show and hide individual objects and entire rows, columns, or stacks and fill them with different colors.

The load plan contains the following information about the business document item:

• Resource

• Item in the resource

• Loading sequence

• Row, stack, and level in the loading space

• Gross weight

• Height, width, and length

• Stackability

You also get information about the load distribution and additional statistical data about the current load on separate tab pages. This includes the following:

• Number of loaded business document items

• Used area on the lower deck of your double-deck trailer

• Utilization of the loading volume as a percentage

• Used area on the upper deck of your double-deck trailer

• Maximum weight for each axle group compared to the current weight for each axle group

• Maximum trailing load compared to the current trailing load

The visualization gives the planner an enhanced overview of the truck's loading. The planner can rotate the view, hover the mouse over particular items to see more information about the items, and they can hide or unhide special items to get a complete impression of the current loading.

In the 3D load plan, you can adjust a load plan manually using buttons in the toolbar or keyboard shortcuts to move products and packages onto a truck. The status and the axle load are adjusted accordingly. You must have selected the Activate Manual Load Planning checkbox in Customizing for Transportation Management under Basic Functions → Load Planning → Define Layouts for 3D Load Plan. You can also define in this Customizing activity which combination of keys execute which command and how far an object should be moved (length of the movement increment).

You have specified capacity details in the Resource Master Data for the truck on which planning is to take place. The optimizer cannot perform the load planning if the relevant dimensions are not maintained. The optimizer and the 3D-Visualization for the load planning use the dimensions maintained here.

Concerning the last point, the following data is critical:

• Capacity

  • Mass: Gross vehicle weight

  • Internal length: length of loading space

  • Internal width: width of loading space

  • Internal height: height of loading space

• Physical Properties

  • Tare weight: empty vehicle weight

  • Cargo body distance: from the front of the truck to the beginning of the loading space

• Axle Group

  • Axle type: single, tandem, triple, and so on

  • Axle group distance: distance from front of truck to axle

  • Dist. between axles: relevant in case of more than one axle

  • Max weight on group: maximum weight on axle group

  • Emp. weight on group: weight of empty vehicle on axle group

• The load planning settings and rules. In the load planning settings, you can maintain specific rules that the optimizer considers during the load planning run, such as height difference within a row, maximum deviation, and so on. You can set each rule as active or inactive and prioritize the list of rules.

The rules that the load optimization algorithm should observe are defined in the load planning settings of the planning profile.

When entering the transportation cockpit, select the appropriate planning and selection profile. The example layout in the figure shows a list of all selected freight orders in the top area. You can see the Load Plan tab In the lower area. Choosing this tab for a selected freight order shows a list with all the main cargo items along with the 3D visualization of the vehicle. Only the main cargo items of a freight order are relevant for load planning, so if you have a pallet where products are assigned as sub-items, those products are not shown in the list, only the pallets. In the case of multi-items (the item type can be defined in the freight order type), the level below the multi-item is used for load planning.

Choosing the Load Planning button (above the freight order list) runs the load planning optimization. The load optimizer fits the cargo items onto the vehicle, considering their dimensions and ensuring that no rules are broken. Using the load planning function, the planner can see immediately how much space for further items is left on the truck.

Information about the planned load is displayed in the table to the left of the visualization image and includes information on the following points:

• Position in which the item is loaded (loading sequence) on the truck
• The stack, row, and level on which the item is loaded
• Weight
• Dimension

Watch the simulation Generate a load plan to learn how to check relevant resource master in the resource viewer and create and review a load plan in the transportation cockpit.

Load Consolidation is an extension of load planning. In load planning, the assignment of a set of packages to one truck, trailer, or container has already been decided before, and the decision to be made is on how to place the packages within the one truck, trailer, or container. The planning problem for load planning can be described as follows:

• Given a set of packages and multiple trucks, trailers, and containers, how do you assign the packages to the available trucks, trailers, and containers?

• How do you place the packages in the assigned trucks, trailers, and containers?

Load Consolidation offers the following:

• Optimizer-based, automated assignment of a given set of freight units to resource types

• Determination of the number of resources to be ordered / to be used

• Focus on planning the main route where no routing decision has to be made

Load Consolidation supports the following:

• Alternative resource types (for example, 20 ft, 40 ft, 40 ft High Cube Container)
• Limitation of the maximal number of available instances possible
• Minimization of total costs (based on defined fixed cost for usage of one resource type instance)
• Capacity Check based on given load dimensions (for example, weight and volume)
• Incompatibility between Freight Unit and Resource Type (for example, temperature condition)
• Incompatibility between Freight Unit and Freight Unit (for example, dangerous goods)
• Detailed Capacity Check (considering detailed pallet dimensions and loading space and stackability of pallets)
• Providing an exact load plan (as in load planning)