Template Attributes

In this section you can read about the different attributes: what effects they have and how to use them. On the different sheets of the Excel you can find a lot of types of attributes, some of them are cost related or opening/closing decisions.

Optimization Parameters and Constraints

Time Limit

Sheets on which it appears: Settings
Possible inputs: any number greater than 0 (in hours)
How it affects the model: The time limit of the optimization run measured in hours. If not specified, the model uses 1 hour

Optimality Gap

Sheets on which it appears: Settings
Possible inputs: number between 0 and 100 (in percentage), the smaller the optimality gap, the better the solution
How it affects the model: The optimization engine stops when a solution is found which is within this percentage of the best possible solution. The default is 0.01(%) when using Single Source and 0.001(%) otherwise.

Maximum # of Source Locations

Sheets on which it appears: Location Product, Customer Product Data
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: On Location Product sheet for locations where there is a Warehouse or a Production facility: The maximum number of source location per product and period that can serve a warehouse/production facility. For example if the maximum number of source locations is 10 for a warehouse location, then the inbound volume can only come from 10 different locations, which can be supplier, warehouse or production facility. On Customer Product data sheet for customer locations: The maximum number of source locations per product and period that can serve the Customer. For example if the maximum number of source locations is 10 for a customer location, then the inbound volume can only come from 10 different locations, which can be supplier, warehouse or production facility.

Maximum # of Destination Locations

Sheets on which it appears: Location Product
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: The maximum number of destination location per product and period that the supplier/warehouse/production facility can serve. For example if the maximum number of destination locations is 10 for a warehouse location, then only 10 different location (Warehouse/Production/Customer) can receive product from that location.

Available

Sheets on which it appears: Supplier, Supplier Product, Production, Warehouse, Warehouse Product, Inventory, Inventory Product, Transport Cost, Stepwise Transport Cost
Possible inputs: Binary: 1 or 0 (empty)
How it affects the model: To indicate that the Supplier, Warehouse, Production…etc., can be used by the model. Only Available without Force Open does not necessarily mean that the minimum and maximum capacity will be considered, in other words the constraint will be conditional. If both Available and Force Open attributes are defined then the constraints must be met. For example, if the Warehouse has minimum capacity (10000) and it is only Available and not Force Open, the inbound/outbound of the warehouse can be less than the minimum capacity (e.g.:5000) and the model will be feasible. But if the Warehouse is available and force open the inbound/outbound of the warehouse can not be less than the minimum capacity or the model is infeasible. Objects with {Curly Bracket} does not need Available attribute if single elements of the group have Available attribute.

BOM and Production Routing

You can read more about how to use BOM and Production Routing in Bill of Material Groups.

Product Created

Sheets on which it appears: Bill of Material
Possible inputs: any number greater than 0
How it affects the model: Product Created attribute defines how many final products can be made from the given amount of raw materials.

Product Needed

Sheets on which it appears: Bill of Material
Possible inputs: any number greater than 0
How it affects the model: Product Needed attribute defines how many raw materials are needed for the given amount of final product

Capacity Consumed

Sheets on which it appears: Production Routing
Possible inputs:any number greater than 0 (0 means unlimited)
How it affects the model: the amount of capacity consumed as the part of the process required to create the given amount of final products defined on the Bill of Material sheet (Product Created).

BOM Variable

Sheets on which it appears: Production Routing
Possible inputs: any number greater than 0 (0 means no cost)
How it affects the model: the cost of creating the given amount of final products defined on the Bill of Material sheet (Product Created)

Count Constraint Attributes

Minimum # of Open Locations

Sheets on which it appears: Location Product
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: This attribute enforces a constraint for the minimum number of locations (from the given location group) where at least one product (or product from the given product group) is present. Curly bracket notation must be used to denote location groups, products can be denoted in curly bracket groups or individually (for instance {Location Group}, Product or {Product Group}). Note that imposing a minimum number of open locations does not force associated resources to open, i.e. a location may be opened without any active resources.

Maximum # of Open Locations

Sheets on which it appears: Location Product
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: This attribute enforces a constraint for the maximum number of locations (from the given location group) where at least one product (or product from the given product group) is present. Curly bracket notation must be used to denote location groups, products can be denoted in curly bracket groups or individually (for instance {Location Group}, Product or {Product Group}).

Minimum # of Open Suppliers

Sheets on which it appears: Supplier
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: This attribute enforces a constraint for the minimum number of locations (within a location group) where at least one supplier (from the given supplier group) is present. Curly bracket notation must be used to denote location and supplier groups (e.g. {Location Group}, {Supplier Group}).

Maximum # of Open Suppliers

Sheets on which it appears: Supplier
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: This attribute enforces a constraint for the maximum number of locations (within a location group) where at least one supplier (from the given supplier group) is present. Curly bracket notation must be used to denote location and supplier groups (e.g. {Location Group}, {Supplier Group}).

Minimum # of Open Productions

Sheets on which it appears: Production
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: This attribute enforces a constraint for the minimum number of locations (within a location group) where at least one production (from the given production group) is present. Curly bracket notation must be used to denote location and production groups (e.g. {Location Group}, {Production Group}).

Maximum # of Open Productions

Sheets on which it appears: Production
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: This attribute enforces a constraint for the maximum number of locations (within a location group) where at least one production (from the given production group) is present. Curly bracket notation must be used to denote location and production groups (e.g. {Location Group}, {Production Group}).

Minimum # of Open Warehouses

Sheets on which it appears: Warehouse
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: This attribute enforces a constraint for the minimum number of locations (within a location group) where at least one warehouse (from the given warehouse group) is present. Curly bracket notation must be used to denote location and warehouse groups (e.g. {Location Group}, {Warehouse Group}).

Maximum # of Open Warehouses

Sheets on which it appears: Warehouse
Possible inputs: Positive integers
How it affects the model: This attribute enforces a constraint for the maximum number of locations (within a location group) where at least one warehouse (from the given warehouse group) is present. Curly bracket notation must be used to denote location and warehouse groups (e.g. {Location Group}, {Warehouse Group}).

Ratio Constraint Attributes

Minimum Ratio

Sheets on which it appears: Supplier Ratio, Production Routing Ratio, Warehouse Ratio, Transport Ratio
Possible inputs: Positive real number
How it affects the model: This attribute can be used to enforce a constraint on the minimum ratio between the volume at an entity (or group of entities) and a comparison group of entities. Curly bracket notation must be used when denoting groups. The minimum ratio constraint is conditional on whether the entity, the location, and the period are single, otherwise the constraint is imposed in absolute sense. All constraints can be modeled as absolute if the respective entities are set to Force Open. The table below shows some examples of ratio constraints which can be modeled using this attribute:

Product

Warehouse

Location

Period

Product 2

Warehouse 2

Location 2

Period 2

Minimum Ratio

{All Products}

Location_2

Location_2

2024

{All Products}

{LDC}

{LDC}

2024

0.25

Thin-Film

Location_3

Location_3

2024

{All Products}

Location_3

Location_3

2024

0.35

Thin-Film

Location_4

Location_4

2024

Thin-Film

{LDC}

{LDC}

2024

0.65

{All Products}

{US LDC}

{US LDC}

2024

{All Products}

{Global LDC}

{Global LDC}

2024

0.75

{All Products}

{US LDC}

{US LDC}

{2024-2030}

{All Products}

{Global LDC}

{Global LDC}

{2024-2030}

0.45

Row-by-row explanation of the table above:
  1. Location_2 must account for a minimum of 25% of the total throughput for All Products across all LDCs. (Conditional constraint)

  2. The Thin-Film product must account for a minimum of 35% of All Products throughput at Location_3. (Conditional constraint)

  3. Thin-Film throughput at Location_4 must account for a minimum of 65% of the total Thin-Film throughput across all LDCs. (Conditional constraint)

  4. US LDCs must account for a minimum of 75% of All Products throughput across all Global LDCs. (Absolute constraint)

  5. US LDCs must account for a minimum of 45% of All Products throughput across all Global LDCs over the period group 2024-2030. (Absolute constraint)

Maximum Ratio

Sheets on which it appears: Supplier Ratio, Production Routing Ratio, Warehouse Ratio, Transport Ratio
Possible inputs: Positive real number
How it affects the model: This attribute can be used to enforce a constraint on the maximum ratio between the volume at an entity (or group of entities) and a comparison group of entities. Curly bracket notation must be used when denoting groups. This attribute can be applied in the same was as the Minimum Ratio, please refer to the explanatory table above for more details.