SC Navigator 2

SC Navigator 2.43.01

Date September 7, 2023

Network Design

• New Features

  • We are excited to announce the release of SC Navigator 4, a new version that integrates the previous Network Design functionality with advanced tactical planning features. Over the past few months, the AIMMS team has dedicated time to assist and train all users in migrating their templates to the new app. Now, we kindly request your cooperation in completing the migration process, as we will no longer provide support or maintain the Network Design app.

  • To ensure a smooth transition, we kindly ask you to migrate your work to the SC Navigator 4.0 app before September 30, 2023, which will be the final day of Network Design app support. On October 31, 2023, we will officially discontinue the Network Design app, so it will no longer be accessible.

  • If you have any questions, please contact our support desk at support@aimms.com. If you need a refresher on SC Navigator 4, you can access our brand-new e-learning materials: Visit our e-learning portal.

• Improvements

  • The New Network Design Version dialog will now pop-up at the start of every Network Design session, to remind you to migrate your work to the SC Navigator 4.0 app.

• Bug Fixes

  • Network Design will now make sure that a Production facility, that is not a DC, will not behave like a DC, as it could do previously.

  • The "Production Product Data" page in the output report did not always include "Variable Cost" (as output), for BOM production. This would only happen if the "Variable Cost" (as input) was given on "Production Product Data" sheet, instead of the "Bill of Resource Data" sheet. This is fixed and the data is now visible, regardless where the input data is specified.

SC Navigator 2.42.07

Date May 12, 2023

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • In some cases, changes for group data on the Adjust Transport Data page were not considered. These changes are now taken into account when doing the optimization.

  • Force Open for BOM production is now read and considered correctly in the model.

SC Navigator 2.42.06

Date March 31, 2023

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • Clicking on the Download Solution button resulted in an error, and no file was being generated.

  • Clicking on the Reset Map to Saved Zooming Scale did not do anything anymore.

SC Navigator 2.42.05

Date March 16, 2023

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • The navigation within all table widgets has been improved such that it is now more simple and natural to interact with and use the tables. Similar to the navigation experience in Excel or in other tabular data applications, you can use keys like [Ctrl][Home] or [End] to navigate within a table. All supported key combinations can be found here.

• Bug Fixes

  • A missing 'key' column would not result in an error while reading, but the data would be unexpected. In this version, you will get an error stating that a column is missing.

Network Design

• Improvements

  • The navigation within all table widgets has been improved such that it is now more simple and natural to interact with and use the tables. Similar to the navigation experience in Excel or in other tabular data applications, you can use keys like [Ctrl][Home] or [End] to navigate within a table. All supported key combinations can be found here.

• Bug Fixes

  • The tables on the Cost to Serve page, did not update correctly when clicking in the bar chart.

  • The "Cost Per Distance" custom objective/cost was not scaled properly when used in combination with multiple units. This could result in incorrect values being used.

Center of Gravity

• Improvements

  • The navigation within all table widgets has been improved such that it is now more simple and natural to interact with and use the tables. Similar to the navigation experience in Excel or in other tabular data applications, you can use keys like [Ctrl][Home] or [End] to navigate within a table. All supported key combinations can be found here.

Inventory Planning

• Improvements

  • The navigation within all table widgets has been improved such that it is now more simple and natural to interact with and use the tables. Similar to the navigation experience in Excel or in other tabular data applications, you can use keys like [Ctrl][Home] or [End] to navigate within a table. All supported key combinations can be found here.

IBP

• Improvements

  • The navigation within all table widgets has been improved such that it is now more simple and natural to interact with and use the tables. Similar to the navigation experience in Excel or in other tabular data applications, you can use keys like [Ctrl][Home] or [End] to navigate within a table. All supported key combinations can be found here.

Secondary Transport Costing

• Improvements

  • The navigation within all table widgets has been improved such that it is now more simple and natural to interact with and use the tables. Similar to the navigation experience in Excel or in other tabular data applications, you can use keys like [Ctrl][Home] or [End] to navigate within a table. All supported key combinations can be found here.

SC Navigator 2.42.04

Date February 27, 2023

Data Navigator

• Bug Fixes

  • The template that was generated with Data Navigator 2.42.03 contained unnecessary sheets.

Network Design

• Improvements

  • Network Design excludes those lanes that cannot be used to satisfy the lead time for a customer. In the previous version, if you had the same location for multiple customers and these customers had different lead times, Network Design would use the shortest lead times for all those customers. Now, for each individual customer it will only exclude lanes based on that customer's lead time.

  • If the solution has a circular flow, you will now see this error message "The model contains circular flow, while the Cost to Serve and End-to-End calculations do not support this. Please contact support@aimms.com for assistance."

  • The performance of the infeasibility analysis has been improved when "Relax Lead Time" is selected.

• Bug Fixes

  • In some cases, the warning "Resource with product level data, but without product level availability." was generated incorrectly. We have fixed that, so if you still see this message, please make sure your data is correct.

SC Navigator 2.42.03

Date February 21, 2023

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • The option "Set Remain Open/Close" on the tables "DC Control" and "Production Control" could impact all DCs and Productions and not just the ones present in these tables. Now this option setting only impacts the DCs and Productions in the table where the action is executed.

  • In some rare cases, the user could save transportation step data where the step was not an integer, after which none of the applications could be opened anymore. In this version, we have prevented the possibility to save such datasets and at the same time, we prevented the applications from being affected by such a glitch.

  • The cost percentage in the Cost To Serve bar chart were not displayed correctly when the model did not have custom cost or custom objectives. The displayed figures have been corrected in such situations.

  • Stepwise costing for all units for groups did not use 0 cost lanes on single level.

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • Data Validation has been improved in the following case: if some product level data is provided for a DC without flagging that product as available for that DC, then a warning is raised in this new version.

Inventory Planning

• Bug Fixes

  • When reading the output data from the Network Design app into the Inventory Planning app, then the data from 'Available (DC/Production)' was used to determine the available resources for Inventory Planning. This resulted in Inventory Planning using all available resources, while it should only use those resources which are open in the solution of Network Design. Now, Inventory Planning correctly uses the 'Open (DC/Production)' data, instead.

SC Navigator 2.42.02

Date November 25, 2022

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • It was not possible to uncheck Exclude Transportation if Available was also checked.

  • For some table widgets, the Excel download/upload functionality was not working properly.

Data Navigator

• Bug Fixes

  • The 'Download .csv' action for table widgets was no longer available. With this release, it is back again.

SC Navigator 2.42.01

Date November 15, 2022

Network Design

• New Features

  • There is a new option for 'Custom Cost: Refundable with limit': Refundable up to a zero balance, after that you will pay a penalty for the unused credits.

• Improvements

  • Custom Objective input data is not visible on the Control Panel.

  • The Excel Upload/Download will now show the same name as in the UI, instead of an internal name.

  • The Excel Upload/Download is now available from the widget action menu, which changed from the hamburger icon (≡) to the dots icon (...) and now includes all actions.

• Bug Fixes

  • Rate Card Mode of Transport was available for Drop Sizes without Rate Band. Now, if a Drop Size does not fit in any Rate Band, then Rate Card Mode of Transports are not available.

  • Base Case Validation now allows product capability either on DC or DC Product level. It no longer looks for both.

  • At Infeasibility Analysis, the Unmet Lead Time table now correctly shows the unmet lead times.

  • The distance/drop size lower bounds for the rate cards were not shown anymore.

  • Rate Card costing was not functioning as expected when more customers were on the same location.

Center of Gravity

• New Features

  • The Excel Upload/Download feature for table widgets is now also available for Center of Gravity. It is available from the widget action menu, which changed from the hamburger icon (≡) to the dots icon (...) and now includes all actions.

Secondary Transport Costing

• New Features

  • The Excel Upload/Download feature for table widgets is now also available for Secondary Transport Costing. It is available from the widget action menu, which changed from the hamburger icon (≡) to the dots icon (...) and now includes all actions.

Inventory Planning

• New Features

  • The Excel Upload/Download feature for table widgets is now also available for Inventory Planning. It is available from the widget action menu, which changed from the hamburger icon (≡) to the dots icon (...) and now includes all actions.

• Bug Fixes

  • In the Inventory Planning wizard, you can configure that you want to use Network Design Output data. If you do so, the wizard automatically turned on 'Consider In-Transit Inventory', while it should leave that up to the user to decide, as the user needs to provide In-Transit Time data in that case. This could result in warnings about missing In-Transit Time data.

IBP

• New Features

  • The Excel Upload/Download feature for table widgets is now also available for IBP. It is available from the widget action menu, which changed from the hamburger icon (≡) to the dots icon (...) and now includes all actions.

Demand Forecasting

• New Features

  • The Excel Upload/Download feature for table widgets is now also available for Demand Forecasting. It is available from the widget action menu, which changed from the hamburger icon (≡) to the dots icon (...) and now includes all actions.

SC Navigator 2.41.02

Date October 21, 2022

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • In some cases, for product groups, Network Design (or Data Navigator) could give an incorrect data validation error "Lane is missing but stepwise cost is defined".

  • In the previous version (2.41.01) the Lead Time data was no longer taken into account in the model.

Data Navigator

• Bug Fixes

  • The overview with Excel sheets was no longer visible on the "Import Dataset" page.

SC Navigator 2.41.01

Date October 13, 2022

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • The Data Validation for Base Case Lanes and Volumes is improved. It works now similarly as for Available and Minimum/Maximum Capacity attributes.

  • The Data Validation for Rate Cards is improved as well. Additional checks have been introduced for potential conflicts between new Rate Card types as well as checks related to Backwards Compatibility.

• Bug Fixes

  • The list of sheets which were read or not read as part of the data import was empty. This list is now populated with the applicable sheet names.

  • The message to indicate that there were duplicate data in a sheet was missing the corresponding sheet name. This message mentions now the name of the referred sheet.

  • Previously, when there were both errors and fatal errors during the data validation, it was still possible to save the dataset. This is now properly prevented in case of fatal errors.

Network Design

• New Features

  • The following new types of Rate Cards are introduced: Supplier, Resource, and Lane Rate Cards. The Customer Rate Cards are re-engineered.

  • For Rate Cards the following new types of cost are introduced: Fixed Cost Per Trip, Minimum Cost Per Trip, and Cost Per Distance.

• Improvements

  • Previously, the user could see in the job list some "unnamed-case" jobs with their creation date. Now a proper name is assigned to such a job containing the name of the configuration and the dataset together with the creation date, such that it will be easier to retrieve the relevant results.

  • Using raw material in BOM production is now taken into account in certain types of data validation.

  • The summation in the E2E overview has been replaced with the weighted sum. The weighted sum provides more accurate data when this is shown per unit.

  • In order to avoid misreading of some values, the number of decimals in the Cost To Serve pages and in the E2E results pages for a single product has increased to 4. For example, in some cases a value like 440.000 is seen as 444000. This is prevented if we show that value as 440.0000.

  • A validation step has been added for the locations which have only one resource and have the indicator 'Location Open/Close' set to 1. Such a setting could cause some unexpected results in the model.

  • The Base Case functionality has been improved. If there is no Base Case Volume for a lane, the Minimum and the Maximum Capacities are now also considered in Base Case mode.

  • If the user provided a value for the Speed initially, then this can be now adjusted in the Trip Data.

  • The Average Drop Size attribute on Transport Cost Data sheet is renamed to Average Load Size in order to be better reflected on most transportation modes.

• Bug Fixes

  • Previously, when an active scenario was loaded, clicking on the "Save Scenario" page action without actually saving the scenario emptied the scenario name in the status bar. This is no longer the case, the correct name is now shown.

  • Using different units for rate cards defined the rate card band based on the rate card THU correctly, but the results were calculated based on the base THU multiplied with the $/(rate card THU). Now these dimensions are handled correctly.

  • Previously, Data Navigator gave a warning when a transport lane was available and excluded at the same time, but did not handle correctly the case when none of those options were set. Now, if there is some data for a lane, but this lane is not set to Available, then the model gives an error, because otherwise the data for that lane would be simply not considered.

  • The Custom Objectives were missing from the Adjust Transport data page and consequently, the users could not change their value. Now these values are added to the tables such that they are accessible to the user.

  • Previously, the filters used for the Results Overview map worked together only with the product and the transportation type. So, if there was a multiple period model or multiple resources on a location, then the tooltips did not change with the filters, which could cause some confusion. Now the Results Overview map is on a location-to-location level, such that when every filter is on, it is showing the total flow and the cost between two locations in a synchronized way.

  • On Control Panel, the Custom Objectives could appear for DC Products even when they were not set for this situation. This glitch has been corrected.

  • In the E2E overview, the Cost per Unit for the resources could be incorrect for the Custom Cost (regular cost and custom objective were fine). All costs are now correct in this overview.

  • The Infeasibility Analysis could indicate that none of the demand for a customer could be met, if a customer was Single Source and not all demand could be fulfilled. This could lead to misleading results, because even if only the demand for one product could not be met, the Infeasibility Analysis would not meet the demand for any product for that customer. Now the Infeasibility Analysis handles this situation properly.

  • It could happen that the actual solving time was not displayed correctly in the solving time tooltip on the Run Time Settings side panel. This tooltip shows now the correct solving time.

Center of Gravity

• Bug Fixes

  • When reading a Network Design dataset in which the calendar unit was not 'day' into Center of Gravity, the period Start Date and End Date could not be read in properly. This caused an incorrect disaggregation of the period data and as a result, some data could be missing in Center of Gravity. The Network Design dataset is now retrieved properly in this situation.

SC Navigator 2.40.01

Date August 19, 2022

Network Design

• New Features

  • There is a new cost type, refundable tax, which is available as a custom cost. With a certain limit the credit (negative cost) can offset the debit (positive cost).

• Improvements

  • The performance of selecting multiple scenarios to compare, has been improved.

  • Unexpected symbols, like ? or #, were not handled properly when used in address data for geocoding. In previous versions, the retrieval of coordinates would stop, without a clear indication of where the problem was. In the new version, it will be able to handle some symbols without any issues, and otherwise it will report an error for that particular location, while it retrieves the rest without any problems.

  • From now on, a new configuration always has all transportation modes turned on. The question in the wizard about transportation mode has therefore been removed. Previously, in some situations, forgetting to turn on any of these modes, could cause infeasibility issues.

  • Some model performance improvements have been made.

• Bug Fixes

  • The combination of "Capacity for Product Group", "Stepwise Transportation Cost" and multiple units now works as expected.

  • The Full Solution Export download failed when a table exceeded the maximum size of an excel sheet. This was caused by the sheet of the E2E Report. Now, if the size of the E2E Report exceeds the maximum Excel sheet size, it is excluded from the download and can be downloaded separately in a .csv file.

Inventory Planning

• Improvements

  • Some data validation messages in the Network Design and Inventory Planning integration area have been improved.

• Bug Fixes

  • After a change in Network Design, it was no longer possible to load the Network Design output into Inventory Planning. The Network Design output datasets can now be selected and loaded again in the Inventory Planning application.

  • Inventory Planning now also works with the same names as in Network Design for availability attributes like Available (DC) and Available (Production).

SC Navigator 2.39.03

Date June 21, 2022

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • The warning about missing period start/end time is adapted to inform the user that the period start/end time should be defined within the start/end year specified in the configuration.

  • Data Navigator could be slow in saving the distances and durations retrieved from Location IQ, even when only a few routes were new. This has been improved, such that now the application saves data faster.

Network Design

• Improvements

  • The Network Design template now contains some links which help the user understand what exactly needs to be filled in in the template.

  • Network Design will export more detailed data when the solution is exported to an Excel file or a database.

  • The data validation logic has improved. In particular, a warning is raised in case the number of DCs or Production facilities is set to zero.

  • Also, an error message is raised in case the rate cards are not set up correctly; for instance, if they are only set for other routes than the routes to customers.

  • The Bill of Material data is checked for simple loops. For example, the application will now give a fatal error, if product A needs product B as raw material, and product product B needs product A as raw material.

Center of Gravity

• Bug Fixes

  • Due to a change in data reading in SC Navigator 2.39.01, reading a multi-period dataset with period grouping into Center of Gravity could result in some missing data. This happened, for example, when the resource availability was specified on the period group level.

SC Navigator 2.39.02

Date May 9, 2022

Network Design

• Bug Fix

  • Accidentally, unit scaling was applied to the new attributes Must Remain Open and Must Remain Close. This resulted in warnings and data not being displayed when trying to load such data.

SC Navigator 2.39.01

Date May 2, 2022

Network Design

• New Features

  • It is now possible to enforce Resources to be opened/closed for specific Products. When keeping a Resources open, minimum throughput or production constraints for Products in that Resource can also be enforced now.

• Improvements

  • Costs are now displayed in details on the Supplier Report, the Production Report, and the DC Report pages.

• Bug Fixes

  • For the main map, the labels used to be set on by default. Now the default is off. The labels can be switched on using a widget action.

  • The model could produce incorrect results if it contained a product with demand, which was also used as an intermediate product, and no production capacity was specified for that product on a resource.

  • In some cases the processing of Rate card data (also in Data Navigator) could be very slow. The speed of this has been improved significantly.

  • After saving a dataset, dataset type got deselected. This issue is now prevented, such that more datasets can be saved without selecting the dataset type every time.

IBP

• New Features

  • Demand data can be initialized from a reference data of your choice. Previously, demand could only be initialized from the data under "Initial Forecast" attribute.

  • Previously, inventory constraints could only be applied to the most granular level of products. Now they can also be applied to group level of products.

• Improvements

  • On the page Create Business Scenario, the user can apply the Reporting Level to arrange the inventory line chart.

  • On the pages Demand Scenario and Create Business Scenario, the Period Filter has been added.

  • In the Product Filter on the pages Demand Plan and Demand Review, there is now a switch which allows to restrict the list by selected customers.

• Bug Fixes

  • Strict Capacity Limit used to be applied based on the Base Supply Scenario. Now it is applied on the selected Supply Scenario.

SC Navigator 2.38.01

Date March 28, 2022

Network Design

• New Features

  • On the page Adjust Transport Data two new options for Base Case Lanes and Base Case Volume have been introduced. A switch option in the Control Panel allows the user to enforce or to switch off some base case lanes and volumes.

• Improvements

  • The functionality to show or to hide labels has been added to the map Result Overview.

  • On the page Adjust Transport Data some additional filters have been added.

• Bug Fixes

  • An issue could occur when all products were deselected in the product filter, namely that some groups became automatically selected again. This situation is now prevented.

  • We also fixed another issue which could result in the situation where period group elements would be shown in the UI and models with minimum values specified over a period group would be infeasible.

SC Navigator 2.37.01

Date March 11, 2022

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • On the page Data Management a new widget Download Dataset has been added, which allows the user to create an Excel file from the loaded data.

  • The message "The data was imported into the database successfully" has been removed from Data Navigator. This saves an extra click, while it is clear that the import of the data was performed correctly.

• Bug Fixes

  • Distances and durations which were retrieved via the Location IQ were not always saved and retrieved correctly. This could happen when the latitude and the longitude of the origin or the destination were given in the input instead of being retrieved from the Location IQ.

Network Design

• Improvements

  • The data validation logic is now executed every time a dataset is loaded such that the user becomes aware of all data validation errors and warnings.

• Bug Fixes

  • The cost type Inter Resource Transport was missing from the table Breakdown of Inter Resource costs on the page Cost to Serve Report, while it was present in the table The cost breakdown per unit on the same page.

Demand Forecast

• New Features

  • After generating the statistical forecast, a demand planning phase has been added where multiple users can adjust the demand plan. These adjustments can be done simultaneously and other users are notified about the changes which have been made.

  • Multiple period level handling as well as multiple unit handling are now available in this Demand Forecasting app version.

• Improvements

  • Previously the user could only choose from correction to an outlier or correction to the average. From now on it is also possible to configure whether the user wants only one side correction or no correction at all, but correction to 0, if negative sales are considered, too.

  • Previously the user could only choose from the defined level to be exported to IBP. From now on the user can provide the exact level name combination. This makes it possible to export on a lower data level as well.

SC Navigator 2.36.2-A

Date February 21, 2022

Data Navigator

• Bug Fixes

  • When your configuration uses the Location IQ in order to get location data, Data Navigator could stop working when opening the GIS Data page.

SC Navigator 2.36.02

Date February 11, 2022

Data Navigator

• Bug Fixes

  • In some cases, Data Navigator did not warn the user properly about duplicate data in the transportation lanes. Now the user will see a warning if two lanes have different data.

Network Design

• Improvements

  • When loading a previously created case, all filters are now initialized with all elements.

  • A new table has been added to the page Cost to Serve Report which shows a detailed breakdown of the Custom Objective components across the supply chain.

  • The End-to-End report on the page "E2E Report" now includes resources for DC/Production Fixed and Variable cost in order to provide a more accurate representation of the underlying data.

• Bug Fixes

  • The Infeasibility Analysis did not handle correctly some lead time violations when used in combination with rate cards. More specifically, it could show that some lanes could be used even though that violated the lead time constraints. Setting the Violation Weight for Lead Time to a non-zero value could relax the lead time constraint, but the amount of violation was not shown. Now only the lanes which do obey the lead time constraint are shown.

  • The first table on the page Multi Period Resources only showed DCs, but no Production facilities. In this new version both DCs and Production facilities are shown in that table.

Center of Gravity

• Bug Fixes

  • Previously, rate card demand data was not read into the Center of Gravity application, which could result in an error message stating that there was no demand. Now a Network Design dataset containing rate card data can be read into the Center of Gravity application.

SC Navigator 2.36.01

Date January 19, 2021

Network Design

• New Features

  • This version provides a new report page, called E2E Report, which gives a visualization of how different products flow from Suppliers/Productions through DCs to Customers.

  • The attribute Exclude (Transport) has been added to the Transport Cost Data sheet. It allows to specify the availability of the transportation lanes by setting the Available attribute for a whole group of lanes and by setting the Exclude (Transport) attribute for a few lanes in that group which are not available.

• Improvements

  • A new table has been added on the page Cost to Serve. This table "Breakdown of primary transport related cost" contains the primary transport related information. These data used to be previously in "Breakdown of supplier related cost".

  • The "Breakdown"-type of tables contain now an additional column Volume Share. This is the percentage of selected demand which uses the current route or resource. The data in this table have changed to the actual costs of the corresponding part of the supply chain. In the previous versions, the shown value was the current number multiplied by the Volume Share. However, this implied that the sum was meaningless unless you set "Show Cost for Demand".

• Bug Fixes

  • The infeasibility analysis did not work correctly when using rate cards.

  • The minimum number of DCs and Production sites was also enforced for group periods, which could lead to an infeasible model. In this new version, those constraints are no longer enforced for the group periods.

  • The feature Relax Minimum DC Capacity was not working correctly. More specifically, it used to relax only the DC and Product level constraint, but not the DC capacity constraint.

Center of Gravity

• Bug Fixes

  • When exporting a scenario without specifying the DC Location Group, the DC Resource Group, or the DC Throughput Capacity on the Export Scenario('s) dialog, the user received a message to provide these data and was referred to the Settings page. This last reference is now deleted as it was incorrect.

  • The data exported by CoG were data for all locations, including the existing locations. The data export functionality has been adjusted such that now it only applies to the CoG locations.

IBP

• Improvements

  • For demand vulnerabilities and opportunities, the changes can now be applied both on a period group and on a single period. Previously, the changes could be applied only on an individual period.

  • For supply vulnerabilities and opportunities, it is now possible to change the total capacity hours and, furthermore, tooltips have been added.

• Bug Fixes

  • The capacity input table did not show properly for capacity by volume datasets. This table has been adjusted.

  • The coloring of the over-capacity violation was not rendered properly for capacity by volume datasets. In this new version the proper coloring is applied.

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • A Country Filter has been added to the page GIS Location Data in order to allow the filtering of locations by country.

  • An additional attribute (Country Code) has been added to the data when you indicate that you want to retrieve data from Location IQ. The country code should come from ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes. This new attribute is useful in combination with the Postal Code attribute, see GIS Location Data.

  • Data Navigator will use a specific postal code logic when both the Postal Code AND the Country Code are provided. This new logic should provide better results.

  • The Location Table on the page GIS Location Data has four new widget actions as well as some additional output data which can be compared to the input data in order to determine the quality of the results.

  • If your dataset has more than 2500 locations, the map on the page GIS Location Data shows initially only the first country; however, the side panel is open by default, such that the current view becomes more clear. This feature is meant to improve performance.

• Bug Fixes

  • It could happen that the sheet Period Relation was missing from the exported template. This is now working properly.

SC Navigator 2.35.01

Date December 8, 2021

Network Design

• New Features

  • This new version offers the ability to add constraints for non-financial objectives (introduced in the previous version) by Location, by Activity Type, or by Transportation Type.

• Improvements

  • The page Cost to Serve Report includes an updated cost bar chart for the costs of the non-financial objectives as well as a new bar chart for non-financial objectives in their natural unit. Also, a new filtering functionality for these bar charts is provided.

  • The tables on the page Cost to Serve Report include non-financial objectives both in their monetary unit as well as in their natural unit.

  • Also the page Cost Report includes now an updated cost bar chart for the costs of non-financial objectives. The tables on this page render now non-financial objectives both in their monetary unit as well as in their natural unit.

  • The Cost Summary on the Status Bar is updated such that it includes now custom cost and non-financial objectives as well. The value shown on the Status Bar can be customized by using checkboxes on the pop-up dialog page.

  • It is now possible to provide non-financial objectives data for BOM production.

• Bug Fixes

  • If the Bill of Resource data was specified over a resource group (instead of a single resource). The model could give wrong results.

  • In some cases, the solving of the model could be extremely slow in the previous version, taking significantly longer time than it used to take before. In this new version, the performance has been restored in this respect.

  • The data of the attribute "Step Cost Per THU" was not converted to the base unit when using multiple units. This has been fixed.

  • The data of the attribute "Cost Per Distance" was incorrectly converted to the base unit when using multiple units. This is no longer the case.

  • When multiple periods were included in the data, while the configuration indicated that the model was single period, Network Design could generate a message containing "Domain error with -inf - -inf", which was not very informative. The application gives now a more descriptive error/warning message in such a situation.

  • The table Secondary Transport on the page Cost Report did not contain transportation from production to customers, but only from DC to customers. This table has been adjusted such it shows now data from both production and DC to customers.

  • The coloring of the Actual Production in the tables and in the bar chart on the page Production Report has been fixed.

  • In the previous version, the input data for the non-financial objectives was not read in at all in case of Supplier and Product. We addressed this issue such that the input data is now read in completely.

SC Navigator 2.34.01

Date November 18, 2021

Network Design

• New Features

  • The application offers now the possibility to model non-financial objectives such as carbon emissions and other sustainability goals. By using the custom objectives functionality, it is now possible to define objectives with units of measurements other than currency (for example, carbon emissions measured in tons).

  • This version provides a new method to specify transportation cost, which uses rate cards for specifying cost per THU for different distance/drop size bands. The model uses this information to determine the transportation cost which is needed for a particular lane.

• Improvements

  • When a scenario was saved and the choice was made for "Adopt Scenario as final result", the model used to export only a small subset of the results to the database. Starting with this version, Network Design exports a larger set of results to the database. More specifically, the application exports now the same data which was exported to an Excel file when you clicked on "Download Solution".

• Bug Fixes

  • In previous versions, you could save a scenario with a / or \ in the name. However, these scenarios could not be retrieved. Therefore, this is not longer allowed and now you will receive an error instructing you to provide a name without those characters.

  • Direct transportation did not consider lead time. As result of that, demand could be fulfilled by suppliers further away that the allowed lead time. The lead time requirement is now enforced.

  • In some rare situations, relaxing the DC/Production capacities could make the model infeasible. This is no longer the case in this new version.

Center of Gravity

• Bug Fixes

  • The calculation of the centers of gravity could be incorrect in the following specific case: When running the Number of CoGs scenario with Demand and Supply as Location Input and using different values for Primary and Secondary Distribution Cost.

SC Navigator 2.33.01

Date November 1, 2021

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • The Average Speed from Single Value Data sheet in the template was overwriting the Average Speed defined by the transportation mode. Now it is only used when the speed is not defined by the transportation mode.

  • On the page Adjust Transportation Data the Minimum Capacity constraint was not initialized and consequently, this constraint was not taken into account when running the model from this page. Now, if the template contains the constraint, it is also visible on the page and accounted for when solving the model from this page.

  • On the page Customer Report the customer selection in the table highlights again the lane between the DC and the selected customer.

  • The table Inter Resource Transport on the Transportation Report page now shows also the lanes besides the Production to the DC.

Center of Gravity

• Bug Fixes

  • When loading a reference scenario, an error could occur stating something like: "The element scndm::SubResourceIsActive_Total(DC,DC) = 2 is outside the range {0..1} of the parameter "scndm::SubResourceIsActive_Total", see also option "warning range violation". (code=500)". This error did not result in a real problem, but could be confusing for the user and therefore, it is now prevented.

IBP

• New Features

  • Resource Category: For the Bill of Materials which contains multiple resources as alternatives (only one resource per category is needed), the attribute "Resource Category" for the alternative resources can now be specified by the user. This new feature is implemented as an additional wizard question in step 17 "Bill of Material & Resources".

  • Sourcing Proportions: It is now possible to define sourcing proportions for products which originate from different suppliers. Moreover, the maximum and the minimum proportions can be specified as well. The corresponding configuration questions are included in step 15.

• Improvements

  • The page Fulfillment Analysis has been enhanced with production details for the materials which are used at each level of the Bill of Materials.

  • On the page Fulfillment Analysis the default setting for the fulfillment rate table is now changed to "Only show exceptions". This setting reduces the loading time when displaying large datasets.

  • On the page Bill of Materials separate filters have been added for final products and materials.

  • For datasets with high-level forecast configuration, if the forecast has not been processed yet, then a reminder dialog is now shown at the start of the Supply Review phase.

  • The information provided after an infeasible solve has been improved in order to indicate which constraint(s) could be relaxed.

Inventory Planning

• Bug Fixes

  • A change in AIMMS introduced a data saving problem in Inventory Planning 2.31.02. Inventory Planning no longer saved all the data into a scenario. Consequently, the page Compare Scenarios could not show complete data for such scenarios and therefore, the user could not properly compare these scenarios. The saving and the comparison of scenarios works now as expected.

SC Navigator 2.32.02

Date October 8, 2021

Network Design

• Improvements

  • The page "Cost To Serve" contains now an additional table which shows the cost broken down by the route through the supply chain.

• Bug Fixes

  • In the previous version a performance degradation has been inadvertently introduced in selecting a scenario for comparison. The performance of this feature has been restored in this new version.

SC Navigator 2.32.01

Date October 5, 2021

Network Design

• New Features

  • A new side panel called Customer Filter has been added to the page Results Overview, which allows to control the sub-set of customers/customer groups shown on the map.

  • New side panels called DC Filter, Production Filter, and Supplier Filter have been added to the page Control Panel, which allows to control the elements of DC/Production/Suppliers shown on this page.

• Improvements

  • In several places, the total at the bottom of a table used to show the sum of all elements, even though not all elements were selected on the side panels. Now the shown totals are computed only over the elements selected on the filter side panels.

  • When comparing the results of multiple cases, some results may have not been shown if the DC/Production/Suppliers was not set to Available in the compared case. The data is now shown as expected in these situations.

  • The sliders for changing the size of nodes on the map have been moved from the side panel Node size to the dialog page Customize Node Sizes. Now this dialog page can be accessed using the widget action Customize Node Sizes on the map.

  • If multiple periods were considered, the side panel Period Selection used to be available on the page Results Overview. The selection object from the side panel Period Selection has been moved on side panel Map Filtering (again, only if multiple periods are involved). By this, the side panel Period Selection became obsolete and therefore, it has been removed.

  • We added some data validation checks in order to detect possible capacity issues as well as potential issues with forced flows of resources and products.

  • The performance of reading and loading transportation data when using multiple THUs has been improved. In some cases involving many products, this improvement may be significant.

• Bug Fixes

  • Some data, such as the values of capacity and fixed cost, could disappear after solving the model if the DC/Production/Supplier was set to Unavailable. Additional checks now ensure that this undesired effect no longer occurs.

  • In some situations, the Infeasibility Analysis could result in a solution where a closed resource was still in use. This kind of situation is now prevented.

  • In some situations, the report generated via Download Solution could contain duplicate rows. This is no longer happening.

  • The data for table Supplier Usage by Product was not calculated at all, when there was no capacity defined. This data is now calculated correctly.

Center of Gravity

• Improvements

  • On relatively small screens, the widget "Show Nodes" on the side panels "Map Control" and "Map View" could get a non-working scroll bar. In order to avoid a scroll bar at all, the widget "Show Nodes" has been moved to the new side panel "Node Filter". Similarly, the widget "Show Arcs" has been moved to the new side panel "Transport Filter".

IBP

• New Features

  • The application now allows to prioritize production resources by using penalty parameters. To use this new feature, first you need to check the wizard question "Add production penalty parameters" and then assign low or no penalty values to the priority resources, while giving higher penalty to other resources which are less preferred.

SC Navigator 2.31.02

Date August 26, 2021

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • In some situations the application could show some red error messages at the top of the screen when loading or creating scenarios. These errors are now prevented.

  • Newly created configurations could not handle transportation data correctly. We addressed the root cause of this, such that the newly created configurations work again as expected.

  • In rare occasions, Network Design could take a long running time when a table was downloaded as a .csv file. This issue occurred when there were some very small numbers (with many decimals) in the table. This issue has been fixed.

SC Navigator 2.31.01

Date August 2, 2021

All applications

• Bug Fixes

  • In some cases, it was impossible to load a created scenario and the message "Read error from case file ..." was generated. This has been fixed. If you receive this message, please delete this case/scenario and create it again in the latest version.

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • If there was a lot of data in a table, you could get the message "Number of entries has been cut off (as it exceeds 50000)". This limit has been increased to 1000000.

  • In rare occasions, LocationIQ could return a status of "TooBig", while the straight line distance was less than 10,000 km. This has been fixed.

Network Design

• Improvements

  • We have removed the option for single transportation modes, where the transportation model was not explicitly named. You now have to name the transportation model explicitly in the Excel Templates. This change was announced in 2.29.01, with an in app message that this functionality was going to be removed after July 1.

IBP

• New Features

  • Minimum Production of products on the corresponding resource and location. If you want to use this new feature, you need to check wizard question "Consider Minimum Production" and provide data for the new attribute "Minimum Capacity (Production)" on sheet "Resource Product Data".

  • Inventory Coverage. Now you can ask inventory to cover the total distribution during specified number of upcoming days/weeks/periods. If you want to use this new feature, you need to enable Minimum Inventory Option, and answer wizard question "Specify Minimum Inventory via covering number of days/weeks/periods on hand". Depending on your inventory model, the data for the new attribute "Inventory Coverage Number" is on sheet "Resource Product Data" or "Product Location Data" or "Resource Data". Note that this feature is only available for the last level in the supply chain.

• Improvements

  • The user interface of IBP has been rebuilt, to create a better, more intuitive user experience.

SC Navigator 2.30.02

Date July 8, 2021

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • The transportation speed could be set to 0 in the previous version. This means that lead time constraints were not enforced correctly and the driving time distribution chart was incorrect. This has been fixed.

  • The list of icons that could be selected in the map customization was incomplete.

  • Once you provide an icon for a node type on the "Results Overview" page, the nodes of that type were no longer visible on the "Customer Report" page. This has been fixed.

IBP

• Bug Fixes

  • In Demand Plan phase, when saving comments, the auto-generated demand value was calculated for all demand, but it should be the demand of selected sales. This has been fixed.

  • In Demand Plan Summary page, the bar chart incorrectly shows calculated data for all demand, instead it should be the demand of selected sales. This has been fixed.

SC Navigator 2.30.01

Date: July 1, 2021

All applications

• Improvements

  • The functionality to download a .csv file from a table widget now takes into account the regional settings of the browser. This ensures that the column separator used in the .csv file is suitable for opening the file directly in Excel.

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • The warning/error message issued when there is duplicate data in the Excel file has been improved.

• Bugfixes

  • In some situations, not all duplicate error messages where provided to the user. This aspect has been improved.

  • If the name of a configuration contained one of the following symbols "# * + | < > ? , /", then the template was not exported. This issue has been fixed, those symbols are now replaced by an "_".

Network Design

• New Features

  • The first time you start the Network Design app, you will receive a notification about the new features in this release.

  • The complete solution can be downloaded into an Excel file by using the button "Download Solution" on the dialog "Save Scenario".

  • It is now possible to define an overall maximum capacity for Suppliers. In order to use this new functionality, please choose the option "Include max. Supplier capacity" in the configuration wizard.

  • It is now possible to define Supplier capacity for Product Groups. If your configuration contains minimum or maximum Supplier capacity by Product and the option "Enable Product Grouping" is set on, then the new option "Enable option to consider Supplier capacity for Product Groups" will appear in the wizard. If you check this option, then the attributes "Minimum Capacity for Product Group" and "Maximum Capacity for Product Group" will appear in the Excel template on the sheet "Supplier Product Data".

  • It is now possible to define DC capacity for Product Groups. If your configuration contains minimum or maximum DC capacity by Product and the option "Enable Product Grouping" is set on, then the new option "Enable option to consider DC capacity for Product Groups" will appear in the wizard. If you check this option, then the attributes "Minimum Capacity for Product Group (DC)" and "Maximum Capacity for Product Group (DC)" will appear in the Excel template on the sheet "DC Product Data".

  • It is now possible to define Production capacity for Product Groups. If your configuration contains minimum or maximum Production capacity by Product and the option "Enable Product Grouping" is set on, then the new option "Enable option to consider Production capacity for Product Groups" will appear in the wizard. If you check this option, then the attributes "Minimum Capacity for Product Group (Production)" and "Maximum Capacity for Product Group (Production)" will appear in the Excel template on the sheet "Production Product Data".

  • A new page "Trip data" has been added, on this page you can see trip distances and durations.

• Improvements

  • Cost categories for which there is no data are removed from the reports.

  • Binding Products data have been introduced for suppliers too, in the same way as it was already available for DCs and Production Facilities.

  • We added four more types of data validation checks for transport lanes:

    • We check to ensure that lanes with transportation capacity are active.

    • We check that the origin of a lane with minimum transportation capacity can handle that product.

    • We check that the destination of a lane with minimum transportation capacity can handle that product.

    • We check that the transportation capacity is not negative.

  • The data validation logic now checks to ensure that all products which are needed in a BOM are indeed supplied or produced somewhere.

  • The data validation of stepwise transport costs has been improved.

  • The description of the attribute "Available (DC)" has been updated such that a clear distinction is made between the attribute on "Resource Data" sheet and "Resource Product Data" sheet.

  • In the Infeasibility analysis the lead times can now be relaxed.

  • In the Infeasibility analysis a route may not exceed lead time, unless the lead time condition has been relaxed.

  • There is only a limited number of daily calls which can be made to Location IQ. In the previous versions, Data Navigator would try to get data for all locations or routes, even when that limit has been reached. Now it stops and gives a message in case the daily limit has been reached.

• Bug Fixes

  • If the model contained single source customers and the option "Relax for Speed" was checked (which is by default), the infeasibility analysis could mark resource throughput as violated, even when that was not specified as option for relaxation. This issue has been fixed.

  • In case an infeasibility was caused by insufficient supply of raw materials, the infeasibility analysis where the "Violation Weight" of just "Customer Demand" was set, would not indicate the cause of the infeasibility. This aspect has been improved and you can now also see which raw materials are actually causing the infeasibility.

  • If a resource was both DC and Production at the same time, some data validation checks could incorrectly conclude that transportation capacities of lanes connected to the resource were inconsistent, because these checks do not take production into consideration. From now on, these checks are skipped for resources which act as both DC and Production.

  • All arcs on the Results Overview page had type "Primary" in the tooltip. This has been adjusted in order to show the correct type.

  • Data Navigator could give an incorrect data validation error when there are groups or routes with 0 distance and the distance and duration should be retrieved from Location IQ. Unfortunately, this glitch could prevent users from saving the data. This issue has been fixed and the data can now be saved properly.

IBP

• Improvements

  • When inventory is managed by Product/Location, then the inventory related data are now displayed in a separate table called "Inventory Plan" on the Scenario Evaluation page.

SC Navigator 2.29.02

Date: May 21, 2021

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • The message about the deprecation of the single transportation mode was intended for the Network Design application only. However, it used to appear for other applications as well, so this glitch has been fixed.

  • The button "Create New Configuration" has been renamed to "Start Configurator" in order to prevent a potential misunderstanding that this button would force you to create a configuration from scratch. This button still helps you to create a configuration based on the existing settings, so the functionality behind it has not been changed.

Network Design

• Improvements

  • If the maximal number of DC/Production points is too low for the model to be feasible, the infeasibility analysis now indicates that this may be a cause of the problem.

  • A data validation check has been added for BOM in order to ensure that no product is listed as both input and output in a single recipe.

• Bugfixes

  • In some situations, navigating to the "Adjust Transport Data" page could inadvertently change the transportation cost, so this has been corrected.

  • In some very rare cases, the Details Cost Breakdown could not have been accurate. These cases have been addressed in this release.

  • If some of the lanes going into a location have maximum capacity constraint and some others not, the data validation could incorrectly conclude that the maximal flow into the location is limited and less than the minimum required flow (due to minimum capacities or customer demand). The data validation has been improved for this situation.

  • If the supplier minimum capacity and the supplier minimum capacity by product are both defined, the data validation did not show forced flow issues for the product level (e.g. the minimum supply for a product is more than the maximal transport out of the supplier for that product). The data validation has been improved for this situation as well.

SC Navigator 2.29.01

Date: April 21, 2021

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • The page Data Management has now an additional button "Load Selected Dataset". This button loads the dataset which has a check mark in the column Mark for Selection/Deletion, so that you can inspect previously saved data.

Network Design

• New Features

  • The map on the page Results Overview has been enhanced significantly. New filters and coloring options have been added, it is now possible to save the zooming scale for a consistent view, and also arcs and nodes customization is now available.

• Improvements

  • We have made some changes to the inner workings of the model in order to improve performance in case the model has Single Source customers. These changes should lead to performance improvements in those cases. Nevertheless, should your model performance deteriorate, you can turn these changes off by unchecking the option Relax for Speed on the side panel "Runtime Settings". In this case, please contact our support as well, so that we can help you analyze the model performance in your situation.

  • Two new attributes have been added to the sheet "Single Data", namely "Time Limit" and "Optimality Gap". These two parameters control respectively the maximum time spent by the solver for solving the model and the tolerance for the solution to be good enough. These two values are also shown on the side panel "Runtime Settings" and can be changed there as well.

  • The CPLEX solver used for optimizing the network has been upgraded to the latest version (CPLEX 20.1).

Inventory Planning

• Improvements

  • If you are a member of the "Business Unit - Admin", you have now an additional element in the status bar which shows the current business unit. If you click on it, you can switch to the database schema of a different business unit.

• Bugfixes

  • When comparing scenarios of different ND Output datasets, the page "Compare Scenarios" did not always show all data in phase 3.

  • When comparing scenarios created based on different datasets, it could happen that for some elements the data were not displayed in phase 3 of the application.

  • When a dataset was loaded in phase 3 which resulted in a data validation warning, the application remained on the page "Compare Scenarios", while it should had jumped to the "Start" page, instead. Internally, the application did consider it was on the "Start" page, which could lead to some issues.

Center of Gravity

• New Features

  • When running the Number of CoGs Algorithm, you can now move the resulting CoGs to real towns and cities closest to the random location found by the CoG application.

• Improvements

  • The CPLEX solver used for running the scenarios has been upgraded to the latest version (CPLEX 20.1).

  • The "Map View" side panel in phase 2 has been renamed to "Map Control". Furthermore, the settings which control the scenario output (Scenario Settings) are now separated from the settings which control the map view (View Settings).

  • If you are a member of the "Business Unit - Admin", you have now an additional element in the status bar which shows the current business unit. If you click on it, you can switch to the database schema of a different business unit.

  • The default setting for Location Input is now changed from Locations Only to Demand Only (in case your configuration does consider Demand).

• Bugfixes

  • When comparing two scenarios, the Secondary Cost for the reference scenario was not displayed correctly in the cost dialog (Primary Cost was shown twice).

Secondary Transport Costing

• Improvements

  • The CPLEX solver used while creating clusters has been upgraded to the latest version (CPLEX 20.1).

IBP

• New Features

  • On the "Scenario Evaluation" page of the side panel with more model options, the option "Allow Over Utilization" can be specified on selected resource(s) and period(s). This is only available when the option "Allow Over Utilization" has been checked.

  • In "Supply Vulnerabilities and Opportunities", a new attribute called "Production Available" has been added.

• Improvements

  • In "Supply Review", when the optimization model is infeasible, the results on the page are emptied and the infeasible status is displayed on the top.

  • On the page "Fulfillment Analysis", the fulfillment rate can be customized by reporting levels. The capacity and production chart can show up to three levels of Bills of Material for the available resources.

  • A Help side panel has been added to the page "Scenario Evaluation" and to the page "Fulfillment Analysis". When the optimization model is infeasible, you can go to Help side panel directly from the pop up dialog message and download a case file for further investigation. The Help side panel also includes a link to the online documentation of the page which you are currently viewing.

  • On the page "Demand Vulnerabilities and Opportunities", the demand data can be customized by reporting levels.

• Bugfixes

  • In "Supply Review", the downloaded file did not include forecast data.

  • On the page "Scenario Evaluation", the resource utilization was incorrectly based off the "utilization limit" capacity.

SC Navigator 2.28.01

Date: March 31, 2021

All applications

• Improvements

  • The column headers in the table widgets are displayed now on two lines instead of a single line. This allows you to read more easily the contents of the column header.

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • On the Business Unit Management page, the Store DB Settings will now ask you if you want to switch to the new database schema. If you click no, you will stay with the default schema. This feature is useful in case you need to setup more business units as this can only be achieved from the default schema.

  • On the Business Unit Management page there is an extra button Switch to Admin Schema which allows you to go back to the default database for the Business Unit - Admin user.

Network Design

• New Features

  • It is now possible to restrict DC capability and capacity on the product level. If you want to use this new functionality, you need to check the wizard option Define DC Capability by Resource & Product, after which you can check the options Define maximum DC Throughput capacity by DC Facility & Product and Define minimum DC Throughput capacity by DC Facility & Product. The new attributes Available (DC), Minimum Capacity (DC) and Maximum Capacity (DC) will appear on the sheet DC Product Data.

  • In addition to the previous feature, it is also possible to define DC capacity for a group of products. To use this functionality, you need to check wizard options Define DC Capability by Resource & Product and Enable Product Grouping, after which you can check the option Enable option to consider DC capacity by Product for Product Groups. The new attribute Capacity for Product Group (DC) will appear on the sheet DC Product Data.

  • It is now possible to limit the number of resources that can serve a group of products and locations. If you want to use this new functionality, you need to check the wizard question Include maximum number of resources that can serve demand by product and location group? and provide data for the new attribute Maximum # of Resources on the sheet Product Location Data.

  • It is now possible to indicate that all resources at one location need to open and close simultaneously. If you want to use this new functionality, you need to check the wizard question Include ability to make open and close decision by location? and provide data for the new attribute Location Open/Close on the sheet Location Period Data.

  • It is now possible to indicate which mode of transportation each resource can use. If you want to use this new functionality, you need to check the wizard question Include which mode of transportation can be handled by which resource? and provide data for the new attribute Mode Allowed In and/or Mode Allowed Out on the sheet Trans Type Resource Data.

• Improvements

  • One step in the wizard contained questions about both DCs and Productions. The production questions have been moved to the previous step, so that now there is one page with Production questions and another page with DC questions.

  • If you are a member of the Business Unit - Admin group, you have now an additional element in the status bar which shows the current business unit. If you click on it, you can switch to the database schema of a different business unit.

• Bugfixes

  • The detailed cost breakdown was incorrect when using multiple modes of transportation on one transportation lane in combination with custom cost. This has been fixed.

  • Some custom costs where not reported in the tables of the Cost Report page. This has been fixed.

  • Changes on the Transportation Control Panel were applied only when clicking the solve button on that page. This has been fixed such that the changes are now also applied when clicking the Optimize button on a different page.

  • Data Navigator could incorrectly conclude that transportation capacities did not match customer demand, if there were multiple customers at the same location. This has been fixed.

  • The Infeasibility Analysis did not relax many of the minimum capacity constraints. In some situations this limitation could lead to a model which could still be infeasible after the relaxation. This has been fixed.

IBP

• Improvements

  • In Demand Vulnerabilities and Opportunities page a switch has been added to the location/product filters in order to shorten the list with elements linked to the selected customers. Before this fix, the list was filled with all locations/products.

SC Navigator 2.27.01

Date: March 4, 2021

Data Navigator

• Improvements

  • We have made some changes that should reduces incorrect "Empty cells or 0's in Relation sheets" warnings.

• Bugfixes

  • Data Navigator could incorrectly conclude that there was an error when there was no Conversion Factor between a product group and unit. This check should not take place for groups, only for actual products.

Network Design

• New Features

  • Network Design now contains the new "Adjust Transport Data" page. This page is an extension of the "Control Panel" page. You can adjust transportation-related data here, to find out how it affects your results.

  • The "Adjust Demand" page is extended with a lead time adjustment feature. The page has been renamed to "Adjust Demand / Lead Time".

  • There are two extra wizard questions in the Data Navigator wizard, where you can indicate that you want to generate geo-coordinates and distance and durations from a third party source. If you check either of these options, extra pages appear in Data Navigator where you can manage that data. See this video to learn more about this new feature.

• Improvements

  • The network design wizard allows you now to provide some distance/duration data, and generate the rest via a straight line calculation. The wiggle factor has now been made flexible, instead of a fixed 20%.

• Bugfixes

  • The demand simulation, in the scenario comparison section, did not work in the previous version. The demand simulation values could be changed, but after running they would all be 0. This has been fixed.

IBP

• New Features

  • Production Batch Size: Previously, IBP assumes production can be made in any quantity. However in real production systems, batch size is usually in place to spread the setup cost over more units. Now IBP can include batch size during production. The new attribute 'Batch Size' is at table 'Bill Of Resource Data' and table 'Resource Product Data'. This new feature is enabled in IBP wizard step 9.

  • Production Lead Time: Production lead time maybe required across various industries. For a dataset where a transportation network is considered, IBP now includes production lead time. The new attribute 'Lead Time' is at table 'Bill Of Resource Data'. This new feature is enabled in IBP wizard step 9.

  • Production Frozen Periods: During production planning, it is not always practical to plan all immediate future periods. Practitioners may already have decided the next three months' production volume in previous meetings. Now in IBP, this data can be included in attribute 'Production Volume Input' in table 'Bill Of Resource Data' and table 'Resource Product Data'. In the analysis, the user may choose the selected resource and selected periods to fix production volume. This new feature is enabled in IBP wizard step 9.

  • Supply Batch Size: When suppliers require batch sizes, such data can be included in attribute 'Batch Size' in table 'Supplier Product Data'. This new feature is enabled in IBP wizard step 15.

• Improvements

  • In Demand Plan, Demand Review and Supply Review pages, the sum row sometimes could show misleading data, especially when reference data is included. This is replaced by a calculated sum at the top.

SC Navigator 2.26.02

Date: February 12, 2021

Network Design

• Bugfixes

  • In some situations, the status bar could no longer be used to open the configuration and Dataset selection pages.

  • In some situations, the Primary Transportation was not visible in the Transportation page.

SC Navigator 2.26.01

Date: February 4, 2021

Data Navigator

• New Feature

  • From the "Settings > Business Unit Management", you now have the option to generate the Database User directly. This prevents you from doing that as a separate step.

• Improvements

  • The user interface of Data Navigator has been rebuilt, to create a better, more intuitive user experience. (See here for the highlights, including a video)

  • If you provide incorrect credentials on the page "Settings > Business Unit Management", you will get a nice error message stating the possible cause of the problem.

  • When using multiple THUs/UOMs, Data Navigator now automatically adds a value of 1 for the value of THU Equivalent for the base unit.

  • It will now generate a data validation error if there is data for a product and THU/UOM combination, but there is no THU Equivalent given. Data could disappear from the model if that conversion was missing.

Center of Gravity

• Improvements

  • The user interface of Center of Gravity has been rebuilt, to create a better, more intuitive user experience.

• Bugfixes

  • The link behind the button on the Help page got broken. It now refers to the documentation again.

Network Design

• Improvements

  • The user interface of Network Design has been rebuilt, to create a better, more intuitive user experience. (See here for the highlights, including a video)

• Bugfixes

  • In some cases, the combination of Bill of Material and Single Source did not work. In those cases, customers could be served from multiple resources. This has been fixed.

  • The filters build into the table directly, did not always work. This has been fixed, so that you can now filter the various tables.

  • The tool tips on the Executive Comparison page could sometimes be cut off.

  • The customer nodes in the map where no longer green, while the legend still indicate that they should be green. This has been fixed and they are green again.

  • The data for Capacity Uplift Fixed Cost (DC) was not taken into account in the model in the previous version. This has been fixed.

  • We fixed a problem that resulted in slow loading of a dataset in Network Design. This performance degradation was introduced in the previous version.

IBP

• Improvements

  • In Demand Review Phase, the user can edit data in all future periods. Previously only the data within forecast window can be edited.

  • When a dataset is loaded, the app will navigate to the designated page of the current user and current phase.

  • Now it is possible to apply different default dataset to different user groups. Previously the same dataset is assigned to all user groups.

• Bugfixes

  • In certain situations the "Prepare Download" button on the Demand Plan Summary page did not work. This has been fixed.

SC Navigator 2.25.01

Date: November 20, 2020

Data Navigator

• New Feature

  • In this release it is possible to create different user groups with different database schemas. See documentation for more information on when and how to use this.

• Improvements

  • On the Data Validation page, the button to ignore data validation has a different icon and a better explanation of the implication.

• Bugfixes

  • The overview in the note sheet could contain duplicate items. This has been fixed.

Center of Gravity

• Bugfixes

  • The setting Use Product Grouping was not always saved correctly in the configuration. This has been fixed.

  • If you created a Center of Gravity configuration directly after you loaded or created a Network Design configuration, with Multiple THUs. Data Navigator would make the Center of Gravity configuration also for Multiple THU, and that is not supported. This means that you could not save a Dataset in Data Navigator.

Network Design

• New Feature

  • Stepwise transport cost functions: this gives the user greater flexibility when specifying transport costs. For example, volume-based pricing discounts, take or pay arrangements, and costing applied to combined transport constraints.

  • Data separation: it is now possible to separate data in different schemas in the database. For example, if you wish to separate data between 2 business units.

• Improvements

  • Changes in the selected products in "Considered Products" would reduce the secondary transportation cost directly, which leads to confusing data, because at that point those values data are not a solution to any problem. In the new version, this value will no longer change directly when you select “Considered Products”. It will now only change after you optimize the model again.

• Bugfixes

  • In case the model used resource groups, a resource not in any of the groups would not be shown on the map. This has been fixed.

  • In some cases the unit conversion when using multiple THU was not handled correctly, leading to incorrect results. This has been fixed in this new version.

IBP

• Improvements

  • In Scenario Evaluation page, Results are colored comparing with the results from a previous solve: green means this result is increased from the previous solve, and vice versa.

  • UI pattern (current scenario) is applied in Scenario Evaluation page.

SC Navigator 2.24.02

Date: October 20, 2020

Network Design

• Bug Fixes

  • The data validation could fail incorrectly, if the model only had Production resources and no DC resources.

  • If a model has a single period, there is no need to set a begin and end date. The previous version would give a Data Validation error for this.

  • The data on sheet DC Product Data and Production Product Data was not read in, when Use Multiple THUs was checked in configuration.

SC Navigator 2.24.01

Date: October 9, 2020

NEW - Inventory Planning

This new application has been designed to support you in your supply chain design, together with Network Design, by assessing the inventory impact of a given network design. Additionally, it can also be used to provide calculated inventory targets for use in our IBP application. This application can also be integrated with Demand Forecast, so that it get some of the input from that application. However, it is also possible to use this without Demand Forecast.

Inventory Planning has the following key features:

• Instantly Calculates minimum, maximum, and average amount of inventory split by:

  • Safety stock

  • Cycle stock

  • In-transit

  • Work in Progress

• Allows you to define service level requirements using segmentation based on rate of sale and demand variability

• Create and save different scenarios for comparison

• If you load in actual inventory data you can get detailed insights on inventory health. Too much, too little or within target Grouped by location and also SKU detail

• Export results for use as inventory targets to be used in our IBP application or in other external planning systems

Center of Gravity

• New feature

  • A number of attributes in Center of Gravity has been renamed to make sure that their names better describe their meaning, as well as improve the consistency among them. This should help improve the understanding of what these attributes are. You can still read old format data templates without any problem. If you try to import a new dataset, it will give you a warning that you should change the names, but it will still work fine and allow you to save the dataset.

Data Navigator

• Bug Fixes

  • In some very rare situations, the data could not be saved correctly, but there would be no error or warning. Now, Data Navigator will give a warning and the data is not saved.

IBP

• New feature

  • In IBP Project Management Phase, now you can create a new project type: Existing Product. With this project, you can modify data of existing products, such as bill of materials, production resource requirement and supplier related data.

  • In IBP Project Management Phase, now you can specify project resource usage, such as R&D, Marketing and Quality. The capacity of the project resources is under the new attribute name "Project Resource Capacity" in template.

  • In IBP Project Management Phase, now you can create a new project type: Early Stage Project. In the early stages of a project (idea, business case, and possibly development) we may not know the exact products and certainly not BOM's and resource requirements. Instead detailed data required for regular projects, you may just put target revenue/margin for this type of project. Later in Demand Review Phase, you can choose to include/exclude early stage projects.

  • Frozen Periods. The model used to give solution on all future periods. Now you are able to provide predetermined production plan data in your dataset, and let the model follow that plan in selected resources and periods.

Network Design

• New feature

  • A number of attributes in Network Design has been renamed to make sure that their names better describe their meaning, as well as improve the consistency among them. This should help improve the understanding of what these attributes are. You can still read old format data templates without any problem. If you try to import a new dataset, it will give you a warning that you should change the names, but it will still work fine and allow you to save the dataset.

  • In the data template created for Network Design, the sheet "Resource Data" and "Resource Product Data" are now split in two sheets each "DC Data" & "Production Data" and "DC Product Data" & "Production Product Data". This means that data for DC resource and Production Resources are no longer in the same sheet, which has lead to confusion in the past. Data Navigator will read old format templates without any problems.

  • In the data template created for Network Design, the sheet "Trans Type Product Data" is now in two sheets "Transport Cost" and "Transport Constraints", which makes it easier to provide the necessary data. Data Navigator will read old format templates without any problems. If the user has selected “Input Data” in the Data Navigator Wizard for trip distances, a third sheet will be generated to capture this data (“Transport Trip Data”).

  • Custom Costs: You can now configure custom cost elements to include in the optimization. These costs can be added at all points in the supply chain where physical costs are incurred. Example use cases are the addition of taxes and duties, carbon costs and inventory holding costs to the optimization.

  • Data validation: we have added some data validation checks in data navigator that will pick up common data issues before saving the dataset, so that these can be fixed before running into infeasibility issues in the Network app. Examples are errors like spelling mistakes and other inconsistencies in the data template, demand greater than supply in the data, no lanes to meet demand, minimum capacity greater than maximum capacity, etc.

  • Control Panel: we have expanded the current control panel to give the user more options and control to configure a scenario from the control panel in the browser, instead of having to return to the Excel data template. For example, it is now possible to switch on minimum and maximum constraints separately from the control panel. It is also possible to edit key parameters like supply and resource capacities and costs directly from the control panel in the browser.

• Minor Enhancement

  • The nodes in the various maps have been increased in size to make it easier to hover over that node to see the name in the tooltip.

• Bug Fixes

  • The Average Drop Size (Previously "Transportation Conversion Factor") was not considered in combination with "Transportation Fixed Cost" and "Transportation Minimum Charge". This has been adjusted.

  • Data that was specified for both THU and groups was not handled properly in previous versions. This has been fixed.

SC Navigator 2.23.01

Date: September 7, 2020

Network Design

• New feature

  • Network Design now offers the ability to model (high-level) bill of materials. This allows you to model production of products, based on other (intermediate/raw materials) products. Your model will than optimize how all products flow through your network. There is a new wizard question available in Data Navigator, where you can indicate that you want to use this functionality. The model requires data on the products needed, the products created, the resources needed and the cost to make it.

• Improvements

  • The first table on the Production page is split into two tables. In the previous versions, the data for the Production unit was mixed with product based data, for that unit. In this version, the table with the product data is placed in a separate table. By default, it shows data for the selected production unit, but through the widget action you can see the data for all resources.

• Bug Fixes

  • The arcs in the map where no longer colored. Originally, the supplier to resource lanes where colored blue and the resource to customers lanes where colored green. This was no longer the case in recent versions, but this has been fixed in the current version.

  • The Detailed Cost breakdown in Network Design could produce wrong results, when there was uplift capacity with different production costs.

  • If there was a minimum transportation limit for a given product, but there was no demand for that product at all, the model would ignore the minimum transportation limit and return an feasible solution. That is no longer the case, Network Design will now return an infeasible status.

Data Navigator

• Bug Fix

  • If you indicate that you want to be able to close DCs (In the Network Design wizard), the attribute "Must Remain Closed" is now added to the template, and take into account into the application.

  • Under certain circumstances the "Description" attributes did not appear in the templates. This has been fixed.

SC Navigator 2.22.01

Date: 04 August 2020

SC Navigator

• New Application: IBP (Integrated Business Planning) is now available.

• Improvement: The data reading performance has improved, in some cases significantly.

• Bug Fix: The functionality to delete datasets was not always working. This has been fixed, and you should be able to delete any dataset in this new version.

Demand Forecast Navigator

• Improvement:

  • Demand Forecast Navigator has a new UX design. It use new navigation controls (like workflow and status bar) and advanced filters for a more intuitive and guided user experience.

  • The learning algorithm now uses a trend damping factor for which the user can set a default value in the configuration and then adjust individually through the UI.

• Fixes:

  • In some cases, the calculated forecast was not displayed on the Forecast Review Graph. This issue has been fixed and the calculated forecast is now displayed correctly.

IBP

• New Feature:

  1. Create projects for new products and manage each project through different stages, from idea to business case, development, test & value, and launch.

  2. Create vulnerabilities and opportunities for both demand and supply, and use these to create multiple demand and supply scenarios for evaluation

  3. Visualize the performance of previous plans and understand the gap to strategy of the current plan

  4. Demand Vulnerabilities and Opportunities, besides demand volume changes, now you can also include price or margin changes.

• Improvement:

  • If the "high level forecast" feature is enabled, you can now restart Demand Plan phase with latest Sales Team's forecast data. Please note that this new feature does not work for existing datasets that already started Demand Review phase or later.

  • In an output dataset some structural parameters may come as empty in new periods. If such parameters have constant value in non-empty months, those values will extend to new periods, meanwhile user is notified.

  • You can now pause projects(s), so that the associated demand won't be included in the future phases.

Network Design

• New Feature:

  • When you save a scenario, you can now indicated that you have adopted this scenario as final outcome of your study. This allows the data to become visible in the soon to be released Digital Navigator. The scenario and dataset page, will also show this Adopted status. You can also set this for an existing scenario in the "Executive Review" section, on the "Sensitivity Page".

• Fixes:

  • It is now possible to have a production capacity extension per product without having a production capacity extension per resource. This is only possible when the resource has enough production capacity to handle the production capacity extension per product.

SC Navigator 2.21.01

Date: 22 April 2020

Demand Forecast Navigator

• Improvement:

  • Detecting records that can be statistically forecasted, improving forecast method estimation based on that

  • Improved learning algorithm performance

• Fixes:

  • Fixed continuous planning mode

  • Fixed forecast filters

Demand Forecast Wizard

• XYZ segmentation boundaries changed from relative to an absolute scale

S&OP Navigator

• New:

  • S&OP now has updated flow:

    1. Project Management

    2. Demand Plan - the former Forecast Phase

    3. Demand Review - the former Demand Phase plus

    • Demand vulnerabilities and opportunities (demand V&O)

    • Demand scenario recap

    4. Supply Review - the former Analytics Phase plus

    • Supply vulnerabilities and opportunities (supply V&O)

    • Dynamic scenario evaluation

    • Business scenario

    5. Management Review - the former Executive Phase

  • Project Management: This is the space to create projects based on new products and consumed resources. Tasks that can be accomplished in this step:

    • Plan project timeline and enter the realized timeline

    • Define project related cost, capacity

    • Define the demand that comes out of this project, and the split ratio to spread its demand across customers and locations

    • Define product related cost, revenue, margin, and resource consumption

    • Compare time-based revenue/margin and weighted demand among projects

  • Demand V&O: The purpose of this page is to capture the opportunities or risks (vulnerabilities) that can bring potential demand increase or decrease.

  • Demand Scenario: User can create demand scenarios from a selection of the previously created demand opportunities and vulnerabilities. A demand scenario is one of the three elements to build a business scenario.

  • Supply V&O: The purpose of this page is to capture the fluctuations of the resource capacity.

  • Dynamic Scenario Evaluation: On this page, user can craft and save business scenarios by deciding on the three elements: demand scenario, model options and supply V&O.

  • Business Scenario Recap: User can compare business scenarios through visualization of their revenue (with gap to target revenue), margin (with gap to target margin), resource utilization, and demand fulfillment.

• Improvement:

  • Configuration questions have been added to S&OP wizard to customize flow:

    • Whether to include Project Management step

    • Whether to include demand V&O

    • Whether to include supply V&O

SC Navigator 2.20.01

Date: 27 February 2020

Important: Dataset Types are now required to match the application for which they are loaded. For example, you can no longer load a Network Design dataset as Center of Gravity output.

• New Application: Demand Forecasting Navigator is now available. The app uses machine learning algorithms to continuously fine tune your forecast. You can use it alone, or in combination with S&OP Navigator to create different demand scenarios and understand the impact on your supply plan.

Data Navigator

• Improvement:

  • The tooltip in the table on the "Generate Data Template" page now contains the name of the attribute, so that it becomes easier to see the attribute and description together.

• Fixes:

  • Data Navigator did not process Multiple THU data correctly and hence this data was not stored in the database.

  • In some situations, users were not able to import data when using multiple THUs. The model would give an incorrect error. This has been fixed.

Center of Gravity Navigator

• Improvement:

  • It is now possible to use Resource Grouping. You can enable this in the Center of Gravity Wizard in Data Navigator.

• Fixes:

  • The map on the Demand and Supply Distribution page did not respond to the Show All Resources switch in the map action menu.

  • On the Fix Locations page, the widget action menu in the map no longer contains the Show All Resources switch, as this map should always show all resources.

  • It was not always possible to load in Network Design datasets that matched with the Center of Gravity loaded configuration.

  • In Center of Gravity, the following internal error could appear: "The set "!__2__!" has a definition and cannot be assigned a value via a procedural statement (implicitly because its domain/range is emptied)." This has been fixed.

Secondary Transport Costing

• Improvement:

  • While running the Cluster Analysis, the status bar now provides a message in which the user can see the progress of the cluster analysis.

  • On the Costing Curves page, it was not always clear that the App Default Cost Function Profile was used when no profile was selected. Now this is also reflected in the UI.

  • Some actions on the Clustering page have been moved to the action menu for the appropriate widget.

  • Now you can use the Description as display name, for example, when input names are ID numbers (like SKU). Enable this setting in the Secondary Transport Costing Wizard in Data Navigator.

• Fixes:

  • On the Cluster Details page, the headers are shown correctly again.

S&OP Navigator

• Fixes:

  • On the Forecast Update page, when a selection of product is applied, changing numbers in the Forecast Update table incorrectly emptied the unselected products.

  • In the Analytics phase on the Input page, capacity-related parameters did not display in the table when there was no production Sub-Resource.

SC Navigator 2.19.01

In this version we made some changes to improve database performance. Please note that the first time you start one of the applications, it might take a little longer to start up, while applying the changes. This is a one-time event.

Date: 31 January 2020

Data Navigator

• Improvement:

  • When uploading a Dataset, data for begin and end date for Periods is now checked.

• Fixes:

  • In the Configuration Wizard for Secondary Transport Costing, we fixed an issue where options for Distance Unit and/or Method of calculating distance data was sometimes not set according to your selection.

  • The StudyInterval attribute has been removed from the Data Template. If you get an error when importing data from an older template, remove that attribute from the file.

Center of Gravity Navigator

• New:

  • We added a Job List page where you can load the results of solves that you have run in the past 30 days.

  • The Resource Location Data page is added to the Configuration Wizard in Data Navigator.

• Improvements:

  • The Drive Time Scenario has been rewritten to provide better results. It now finds the minimum number of DCs needed to serve all customer locations within the drive time limit.

  • The map on Center(s) of Gravity page has a new option called Show All Resources. Use it to show or hide your existing resources in the map. Find this option in the widget action menu in the top right corner of the map.

  • A previous solution is no longer removed when you change the input data. Instead, a status message will indicate that the solution is no longer consistent with the input data.

• Fixes:

  • In some situations, you were not able to import data when using multiple THUs. The model would give an incorrect error. This has been fixed.

Network Design Navigator

• New:

  • We added a Job List page where you can load the results of solves that you have run in the past 30 days.

• Improvements:

  • The Drive Time bar chart has an extended range to allow for better insight in longer drive times.

  • Now the detailed breakdown cost is calculated when loading a case from an older version before this functionality was added. To activate this change, cases used in v2.18.01 need to be manually updated:

  1. Load the case, via the "Data Manager"

  2. Navigate to Analytics > Costs > Detailed Cost Breakdown (the Detailed Cost Breakdown will be calculated)

  3. Save the case via the "Data Manager"

• Fixes:

  • Issue with the map scroll and zoom on the Flows page has been fixed.

  • Sometimes widget actions did not work after loading an case without a dataset. This has been fixed.

  • Fixed issue where Configuration Wizard sometimes gave an error for "Period Relation".

  • Fixed issue where the Maximum Number of DCs value restricted the number of resources (including Production Facilities) instead of only the number of DCs.

  • Fixed error where you were not able to import data using multiple THUs

S&OP Navigator

• New:

  • Now you can enter the Initial Forecast at the Product Group level, not only the individual Product level. You can also add the proportion between Product Group and individual Products, and the application will disaggregate a Product Group forecast into individual Product forecasts.

• Improvements:

  • The setting "Fill in empty month's forecast with reference data" is moved to the Configuration Wizard.

  • A new option is added to the Configuration Wizard to disable Inventory.

SC Navigator 2.18.01

Date: 31 October 2019

Network Design Navigator

• New:

  • For multi-period models, open/closed status for a Resource can now be determined per period. This gives better insight into when to open or close a facility. You can access this functionality from new configuration wizard options in Data Navigator.

  • There is a new page Analytics>Customers>Adjust Demand where you can make specific adjustments to the demand. For example, by region or product group.

  • You can set the value for "Remain Open" and "Remain Closed" for all resources at once from an action menu on the Scenario Resource Control table on the Analytic page.

  • There is a new page Analytics>Costs>Detailed Cost Breakdown, where you can see how the different costs types impact the cost to meet the demand at a particular location.

  • Network Design Navigator now has a set of Executive pages. There you can compare multiple scenarios created in the analytics phase. There are three views:

    • Compare key results for multiple scenarios.

    • Compare cost breakdown and open/closed resources between two scenarios.

    • Compare demand simulations for multiple scenarios.

• Improvement: You can solve the model from any Analytics page and save the results as a scenario.

• Fixes:

  • Capacity increase by Resource and Product was not possible when Production Capacity by Resource was set as unlimited.

  • Reported calculation of the MIP gap is now consistent with solver calculation. This change has no impact on the solution, just the reporting.

S&OP Navigator

• Improvement: In S&OP Executive Phase, now you can customize financial scenario names in the side panel.

• Fix: TotalDistributionCost did not include distance between locations. This has been fixed so that, when unit transportation cost is the same, shipping cost is higher to locations with longer distances.

SC Navigator 2.17.01

Date: 11 July 2019

Data Navigator

• New: Attribute overview on the Generate Data Template page indicates changes in the new configuration at-a-glance.

• Improvement: UI text and Wizard questions have been edited for clarity.

Network Design Navigator

• New: You can now model Production Facility resources. Production Facilities are similar to DC resources, but with some added options such as max capacity per product/facility. A resource can be both a DC and a Production Facility.

• Improvement: A list of existing scenarios is displayed for reference on the Create Scenario page.

S&OP Navigator

• Improvement: Wizard gives the option to skip translating Product/Location Groups in the Product Location table.