All about the Freight Load Optimisation experiment type in the Simulations section
Introduction
Freight Load Optimisation is an experiment type within the 7bridges simulations feature. This experiment type allows customers to create simulations that make optimised order fulfilment decisions for your suppliers to your warehouses within Europe. It's a way of running what if scenarios on your inbound freight order fulfilment.
At a high-level the simulation engine optimises over the following dimensions:
- When to collect and deliver each order, given an allowable 'flex' in each date, and full route time estimates with site opening times
- Consolidation of orders, quantified as number of pallets, into vehicles
- Vehicle route taken - both direct routing and “milk-run” routing are considered with up to 5 sites visited including up to 2 delivery sites
- Primary and secondary favoured providers
What outputs are given?
For each simulation in an experiment you can download a CSV file with the full output data for that simulation. It shows the routes and consignments along with all the detailed data to be able to plan the inbound freight order fulfilment. The tabs in the output file are:
- Trips - the total cost for each trip
- TripRoutes - the collection and delivery for each trip
- TripVehicles - the provider, vehicle type, pallet quantity and cost per vehicle for each trip
- TripVehiclesLoads - The SKUs per trip
- Consignments - The consignments per trip
- SimulationDetail - All these detailed fields in 1 table
- SimulationIssues - any errors or problem fulfilments in the simulation
How to get access?
Currently only customers on Optimise Advanced have access to Freight Load Optimisation experiments. If you would like to get access, please discuss with your Customer Success Manager.
How to run a Freight Load Optimisation simulation
Only users with the permission role Admin or Optimise can see the Simulations section.
- Navigate to the Simulations section in the 7bridges software.
- Click the button to create a New experiment.
- Click the button to Choose Freight Load Optimisation.
- You now have to upload the input data for the simulations. The files you upload here will be used for every simulation within this experiment. You can download template files from this page as a guide.
- When you have uploaded the input files, click Next.
- Now you can configure the first simulation in this experiment; for more information on the options see the Simulation settings section below.
- Once you've chosen the settings, click Run simulation.
The simulation engine will now take the input files and run the first simulation according to your settings. You can see the status of the simulation at any time on the experiment page (this is the page you see after creating the experiment and first simulation). You can also expand each simulation row to see more details:
Simulation settings
When creating a simulation in a Freight Load Optimisation experiment there are a number of options you can choose. These apply constraints or controls to the simulation engine.
Delivery date optimisation
This determines the flexibility applied to the delivery date and chooses the date based on the input data
- An Ideal setting will try to deliver the shipment as soon as possible; this is more restrictive to the simulation engine.
- A Final setting is less restrictive and may be later than the ideal date
Collection flex
You can adjust the flexibility applied to the collection date:
- Collection dates may be flexed to the smaller (”pessimistic”) amount
- Collection dates may be flexed to the larger (”optimistic”) amount
Milk runs allowed?
This will enable milk runs as a delivery method in the fulfilment.
Milk runs primary provider?
With this setting, any milk runs can only use the provider that is set as primary in the input data
Consignment combinations?
This is a consolidation option where multiple consignments can share the same vehicle.
Suggested simulations to run
1. A baseline simulation with the base set of data:
- Delivery date optimisation = Final
- Collection optimisation = None
- Milk runs allowed? = No
- Milk runs primary provider? = No
- Consignment combinations? = No
2. Full optimisation
- Delivery date optimisation = Final
- Collection optimisation = Optimistic
- Milk runs allowed? = Yes
- Milk runs primary provider? = No
- Consignment combinations? = Yes
How to get support with simulations
If you have problems running simulation experiments, please contact the support team.