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| Industry Solutions - Logistics |
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CASE STUDIES
Intermodal Container System - Case Study
With volumes of inbound and outbound containers soon to surpass a facility's capacity, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) needed a tool to help determine an economical solution. Visual Thinking responded by developing a facility-wide simulation to analyze the performance of the Inter-modal facility under various capital improvement options.
The simulation provides detailed analysis of all aspects of the Inter-modal facility, including all activities, resources and storage capacities within the facility. Examples of key management statistics include:
- Trucker dwell times
- Train turn around times
- Resource utilization
- Track turnover ratios
- Toplifter travel distances
- Overall cost per handling
Intermodal Waste Management - Case Study
A Waste Management consortium is being supported by Visual8 in their bid for a major city's waste management system through a detailed simulation of the proposed system demonstrating how this system is designed to operate under extreme conditions.
This simulation study helps answer questions such as:
- How many containers, barges?
- Tug boats and unit trains are required in the system?
- What is the cost of operation?
- How will the system perform under adverse weather/operating conditions?
- What are the handling limits and bottlenecks?
Border Gateways - Case Study
Visual8 dveloped Border-Flow© in conjunction with Border Gateways to analyze truck queuing issues at the major border crossings between Canada and the U.S.
The model simulates commercial truck traffic flow from the major arterial routes into the primary city roads feeding the border crossing. The tool also takes into account bridge and tunnel crossing constraints as well as staffing levels at the border security and inspection kiosks.
Methods to reduce truck queuing times and street congestion were examined using this simulation.
Wine Supplier - Case Study
A hierarchical supply chain simulation model was developed in SIMUL8 to address warehousing and distribution issues within a $3 billion wine supplier network (our client would like to remain anonymous).
This simulation provides the ability to investigate improved service strategies to their 500 retail outlets based on new inventory management and supply methods. The system provided a direct comparison of current state to potential future scenarios and forecast the storage capacity requirements at the distribution centers in terms of racking, dock space, and staffing requirements.
The resultant simulation allows users to conduct 'what-if' analysis around increased product demand and assess the limits of the current supply network.
Pharmaceutical Company - Case Study
A warehouse simulation for a large pharmaceutical company (our client would like to remain anonymous) was developed to provide a detailed analysis of all their automated warehouse materials handling. This includes the inflow of materials from receiving docks to palletized ASRS storage through to the shipping of finished product on containers out of the warehouse.
The resultant simulation model was used to analyze the bottleneck processes in the system to handle increased production volumes. The ability to quickly analyze the entire system and its interdependencies using this simulation model led to an increase in materials handling capacity of 20% through the addition of AGV's.
Push Vs. Pull Inventory Management - Case Study
Visual8 assisted NIBCO in their use of simulation to evaluate the feasibility and cost-benefit of implementing a pull rather than a push inventory supply chain system. Simulating this radical change to the distribution system of copper products the tool identified how parts could be staged at levels of competition reduce manufacturing lead times and inventory in the field.
The model was used to analyze which parent products could be staged, at what stage in the manufacturing cycle to satisfy downstream requirements. Replenishment points and order quantities for staged product were established through the simulation, given the variability of demand, in order to maintain high order service levels but minimize inventory investment.
Rail Network Modeling - Case Study
Visual8 Corporation has worked with a major North American railroad (our client would like to remain anonymous) to develop a simulation model of their entire parts supply network. This computer model takes into account geographic locations of the many source and supply points in the system together with the frequency of stock replenishments and product demand levels.
By taking into account transportation travel times and costs across the network, product consumption rates and reordering policies, holding charges, truck-load (TL) and less-than-truck-load (LTL) policies, order consolidation rules, milk-runs, and other key parameters, the simulation provides performance results over a years operation. The tool was used to support the rationalization of stocking levels and warehousing location for supplies across the network in support of reducing costs for the railroad's maintenance operations.
LOGISTICS MODELING SIMULATION BENEFITS
Typical Logistics Models:
- Rail and Shipping
- Traffic flow management
- Warehouse and inventory management
- Supply chain analysis
Types of Problems We Resolve:
- Service strategies and forecasting
- Capacity and bottleneck analysis
- Pull vs. push inventory management
- Intermodal interfacing
We Can Ensure Your Goals Are Met:
- Optimization of Service Levels and Resources
- Maximizing your ROI
- Integrating all stages of the supply chain
To determine how a logistics modeling simulation can specifically benefit your company, contact us.
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"Thank you very much for the training. It was very helpful and I am excited about us deploying the tool on many of our projects. From one instructor to another, thank you for being patient with us."
C.J. Renegar,
BNSF Railway |
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