Manual Logware

SELECTED COMPUTER PROGRAMS

FOR LOGISTICS/SUPPLY CHAIN PLANNING

Version 5.0

Ronald H. Ballou

Weatherhead School of Management

Case Western Reserve University

(C) Copyright 1992-2004 Ronald H. Ballou All rights reserved

SELECTED COMPUTER PROGRAMS

FOR LOGISTICS/SUPPY CHAIN PLANNING

LOGWARE is a collection of selected software programs that is useful for analyzing a variety of logistics/supply chain problems and case studies. It contains the following modules.

Module Page

FORECAST Forecasts time series data by means of exponential smoothing and time series decomposition methods

5

ROUTE Determines the shortest path through a network of routes

9

ROUTESEQ Determines the best sequence to visit stops on a route 13

ROUTER Develops routes and schedules for multiple trucks serving multiple stops

15

INPOL Finds optimal inventory ordering policies based on economic order quantity principles

24

COG Finds the location of a single facility by the exact center-of-gravity method

33

MULTICOG Locates a selected number of facilities by the exact center-of-gravity method

37

PMED Locates a selected number of facilities by the P-median method

41

WARELOCA A warehouse location program for specifically analyzing the Usemore Soap Company case study

45

LAYOUT Positions products in warehouses and other facilities 47

MILES Computes approximate distance between two points using latitude-longitude or linear-grid coordinate points

49

TRANLP Solves the transportation method of linear programming

51

LNPROG Solves general linear programming problems by means of the simplex method

53

MIPROG Solves the mixed integer linear programming problem by means of branch and bound

55

MULREG Finds linear regression equations by means of the stepwise procedure of regression/correlation analysis

57

SCSIM Simulates the flow of a product through five echelons of a supply channel

62

Each module is selected from the following master screen by clicking on the appropriate button.

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

LOGWARE is designed for microcomputers operating under WINDOWS 98, NT, 2000, or XP. At least 16MB of RAM should be installed. Hard drive space of at least 10MB should be available. A color monitor capable of producing at least 640x480 pixels resolution is needed, although 800x600 is better and 1024x768 is preferred. Resolutions greater than 1024x768 pixels are not supported. A laser printer is preferred. A mouse is needed. A 3½ floppy drive and/or a compact disk reader are needed.

INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE ON A HARD DRIVE

Place the program compact disks in the appropriate drives. In WINDOWS, click on the Start button and then select the Run option from pop-up menu. Type “X:Setup.exe” (“X” being the letter designated for your CD drive) . The program may also be installed with Windows’ Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Install option. Change the subdirectory under which the program will be installed if the default subdirectory is not desired.

RUNNING THE PROGRAMS

After the program is installed, click on the Start button and select Programs. Choose the Logware icon to activate the program. Click on the desired program module. A shortcut icon on the Desktop may also be created.

EDITING THE DATA

In those modules where a screen data editor is present, the first action is to open a data file by clicking on the module’s Start button. If a file is named that is not in the current list of files, a data shell will be created into which a new problem may be entered. The use of the editor is simple and transparent with a little practice; however, a few comments about its use may help to get started.

• Press the Ins key to start a new line of data in a matrix. The normal action is to insert a text row at the end of the matrix. The Add button may also be pressed. This will allow a row to be added at the end of the matrix as well as within the matrix. Position the cursor in the matrix row where the row is to be added.

• Pressing the Esc key clears a matrix cell.

• Pressing the Delete button deletes the row in a matrix highlighted by the current cursor position.

• If Column arithmetic is to be used, highlight the matrix column on which the action is to apply.

Alternatively, the data for each module except SCSIM may be created and edited with the use of Excel. It is expected that the user has a basic knowledge of Excel use.

COPYING THE INSTRUCTIONS AND THE SOFTWARE

This software and the associated instruc¬tions may be copied as long as they are used for educational purposes. All copied materials must display the following copyright

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