Configure a new zone to Load or Unload goods. 

 

How to add a zone to your location.

Zones can only be created by a Primary Owner, a Company Owner or an Administrator. Users or User+ cannot add zones.

For each zone in a location with yard management enabled, you can set

• the operation,
• the productivity,
• the properties,
• the capacity threshold.
• & the extra fields on a shipment. 

 

Step 1: Go to the supply chain of your company

 

Click on the 'Supply Chain' tab.

Step 2: Select the desired folder

 

Select the folder that holds the location to which you want to add a zone.

In your company account, go to your supply chain and select the location you want to add a zone to.

 

Step 3: Select the location you want to add a zone to

 

Slot booking works on zones in a location, not directly in the location itself. You need to configure at least one zone to start with slot booking.  To add a zone to a location, yard management for that location needs to be enabled.

 

You can check in the location's details whether yard management is enabled or not: if it isn't, you will see the following message:

You can find more information on *how to enable yard managemen* here.

 

Step 4: Add zone

 

If yard management is enabled, click 'Add Zone'.

You can now fill out the details for the zone

 

4.1. First the general information:

Name and description are evident.  The name will be visible for suppliers, carriers and principals. The reference is the link to your ERP system when importing orders. You can combine multiple references to 1 location by using the '#' character like references. Only name is required(*)

The operation can be Unloading/Loading or mixed. This is only of importance for a 3PL. 

You can check 'Default zone' if this zone has to be selected by default when importing orders without zone. 

Field 'Zone can be merged', 'Merge Into ...' and the Ranking are fields to allow orders to be combined in 1 shipment even if the orders are for different zones. You can find a specific article with some examples in the same section of our knowledge base 'How to set up the merging capabilities of Streamliner'

Zone can be merged is a property to indicate that orders for that zone can be combined with orders for other zones. A shipment will be created in the 'Into Merge zone' with a certain ranking without any interaction of supplier or carrier. The highest ranked zone will be the resulting zone.

4.2. Then you set the productivity you can handle in this zone.

For each packaging unit that is configured, you define if you can handle this packaging unit in that zone and how many minutes it will take to unload or load such a packaging unit. Please consider all the time that is needed for the different roles related to unloading and/or loading. 

Deactivate those type of packaging that can not be handled in that zone. Means that a supplier, carrier or principal will have to do an extra manipulation to select a non supported packaging type and that the shipment will need your approval. 

As extra you can set the default pallet type if you wish. But in most of the time, you will leave this zone blank for unloading. It is normally the supplier who determine the pallet type he will use. For loading you can decide the pallet type that will be used by default. 

For the packaging types 'Parcels' and 'Bulk/container/...' you can set your own label and units. These labels will be used for the hoover over packaging units and to create packages and shipments if you need a more appropriate description  for that zone. 

Example Bundles, Carpets, Cans, Cont 20ft, .... whatever you can think off. 

 

The last setting in the productivity block is the turnaround time. The time that Streamliner will add for each shipment to perform the administrative tasks. This is a workload independent of the the N° of packaging units you will unload or load. Examples: help to dock, paperwork, ...

 

4.3. Then we continue to set some general properties.

Time window: 

Every purchase order that is sent to a supplier has an expected delivery date. You expect that the supplier will deliver the goods more or less on time. You set this range for every zone. If a supplier or carrier will book a slot that is outside this time window, the shipments needs to be approved. 

 

Sharing resources:

A zone can have it's own team of manpower, of you can setup a team that is spreading it's resources over multiple zones. The concept is rather clear and completely up to you to configure. 

If you share resources over zones, you have to setup at least 1 zone to configure your manpower and afterwards, you can configure other zones to use these resources. You can not set both. Or you set : 'Zone can share it's resources' or 'Zone is using resources from' . No need to configure anything if your zone has it's own resource planning.

Attention point: Zones that are using resources from another zone, can't set their own resource utilization. Percentage of resources that can be used by one truck will be used from the zone that is sharing it's resources.

 

Number of trucks we can handle on the same moment: 

The N° of trucks that you can handle on the same moment in this zone, can only be set after the link with the gates. First assign the gates that are linked to the zone and come back to this page to set the N° of trucks. The N° of trucks is always less or equal as the N° of gates you have.

 

Percentage of resources that can be used by one truck:

This parameter is used to really fine tune your slotbooking capabilities. By default, every slot you book will try to allocate as much resources as possible. This is perfect for warehouse were you handle many trucks, let's say above +- 50, 60. But in some specific situation, you want always that 2 or 3 trucks are handled at the same time. 

For example, you planned capacity to always load 2 trucks on the same moment and not handle one truck after the other. In that case you set Streamliner that 1 slot may at maximum use 50% of the resources, making longer slot time, but allow to handle 2 truck on the same time. 

As soon as you handle more then 4 trucks on the same moment, the algorithm of Streamliner is that good that it will calculate the best spread. You set this parameter only if you handle a limited n° of trucks in that zone. 

Additionally, you can choose the 'Follow FTE resources' option. This innovative feature enables Streamliner to calculate the number of FTEs working in a zone and autonomously decide on the distribution of resources. It facilitates optimal resource allocation for small teams, especially when the number of FTEs varies throughout the day.

 

Freeze time:

This is also called the cut-off time. You can prohibit the supplier, carrier or principal to add or edit shipments on last moment.  Streamliner supports 2 algorithms. A rolling algorithm or a fixed hour principle.

Rolling: Settings this for example to 24 will prohibit that a shipment is created less than 24 hours in advance.

Fixed: Will close the possibility for the next day, or for next 2 days to add or change shipments at a fixed moment on teh date. 

This setting is intelligent and will use the settings of your resources and skip non-working days. Yes we can! 

 

Threshold remaining resources:

By default on 90%. Streamliner will not use the last 10% of a timeslot for a new shipment and skip to next timeslot. Increase this to optimize if needed, but taking a buffer in never bad. 

 

The booking slot rules:

Streamliner supports three rules. Settings rules to a higher level, will restrict your stakeholders more in the possibilities to book a slot.  This has no impact on your own organization. Your people can always book a slot, whatever the rules are. The normal rule, to automatically approve a slot when all rules are respected, is key. Once a rule is not respected, you allow your stakeholder to ask if he can have a slot or not. 

Rule 1 with the highest flexibility: Booking above upper threshold is not allowed

• Stakeholder can book a slot between 100% and upper threshold if there are resources but slot needs to be approved
• Stakeholder can book a slot when there are no resources but slot needs to be approved
• Stakeholder can book a slot when packaging units are not supported but slot needs to be approved

Rule 2 with medium flexibility: Booking without resources or above upper threshold is not allowed

• Stakeholder can book a slot between 100% and upper threshold if there are resources but slot needs to be approved
• Stakeholder can not book a slot when there are no resources
• Stakeholder can not book a slot when all lanes are used
• Stakeholder can book a slot when packaging units are not supported but slot needs to be approved

Rule 3 with minimal flexibility: Do not allow any capacity warning

• Stakeholder can not book a slot between 100% and upper threshold 
• Stakeholder can not book a slot when there are no resources
• Stakeholder can not book a slot when all lanes are used
• Stakeholder can not book a slot when packaging units are not supported but slot needs to be approve

Temperature range warehouse:

This is purely informative. This information can be consulted by carrier or supplier when they book a shipment. This information is available in the details of a shipment. 

Automatic approval of shipments:

This switch, by default set, enables the possibility to automatically approve a shipment, when the shipment follows all rules. As soon as one of the rules is not respected, the shipment needs to be approved. 

If this switch is not set, you have to approve every shipment. 

 

And last but not least 

Allow to set loading sequence:

This setting allows the carrier, if also set on carrier level to set a loading sequence if carrier plans a shipment to load for multiple packages. 

 

4.4. The capacity thresholds.

 

The thresholds are the lines you will see in the workload overview. Expected workload below lower threshold will be colored in Blue. Expected workload between lower and 100% will be colored in Green. Expected workload between 100% and upper threshold will be colored in Orange. Workload can be forced to fit in a timeslot in the orange occupation. Above the upper threshold we have a Red color.

 

This is visible on the shipment screen:

 

4.5. And we end with the extra fields on a shipment screen. 

 

You can add extra fields on the shipment screen. These fields are split in three blocks. 

• Driver related fields
• Load related fields
• Extra fields

As soon as you enable one of these switched, Streamliner add an extra tab on each shipment to have these extra fields available. 

This information is also shown in the detail pane of a shipment. 

 

 

DID YOU KNOW...

... Before you can add zones to locations, you have to *enable Yard Management*.

... You have to define the *Productivity of your Zones*.

… You have to set and link gates before you can set the number of trucks.

... You can define lower and upper *Capacity thresholds* for your zones.

... After you have created a zone, you can add a Gate to it.

 

Edit a zone

You can edit a zone and change most of the properties. 

In the overview of zones of a location

click on the name of the zone. The screen will extend and show you the functions to Edit, copy or disable the zone.