Understanding Lane Creation Rules
Transportation lanes are a necessary part of any supply chain. These lanes represent how product flows throughout our supply chain. In network optimization, transportation lanes are often referred to as arcs or edges.
In general, lanes in our supply chain are generated from the transportation policies and sourcing policies provided in our data tables.
Transportation policies are stored in the TransportationPolicies table. Sourcing policies are stored in the following tables:
- CustomerFulfillmentPolicies
- ReplenishmentPolicies
- ProcurementPolicies
From the data in these tables, the software automatically generates the lanes (i.e. arcs or edges) in our network before sending it to the optimization solver. We can control how these lanes are generated as a parameter of our Neo model.
Neo models can follow 4 different lane creation policies:
- Transportation policy lanes only
- Sourcing policy lanes only
- Intersection
- Union
Transportation policy lanes only
If the “Transportation Policy Lanes Only” rule is selected, Cosmic Frog will only generate transportation lanes based on data in the TransportationPolicies table. If a lane between two sites is not explicitly defined here, product will not be able to directly flow between those sites. Note that any additional information specified in a Sourcing Policy table (unit cost, policy rule etc.) will still be respected for the lane so long as it exists in the Transportation Policies table.
Sourcing policy lanes only
If the “Sourcing Policy Lanes Only” rule is selected, Cosmic Frog will only generate transportation lanes based on data in the Sourcing tables. Even if an origin-destination path is defined in the TransportationPolicies table, product will not be able to flow via this lane unless there is a specific sourcing policy defining how the destination site gets product from the origin site. Note that any additional information specified in a Transportation Policies table (cost, policy rule, multiple modes etc.) will still be respected for the lane so long as it exists in a Sourcing Policy table.
Intersection
If the “Intersection” rule is selected, Cosmic Frog will only generate transportation lanes if they are defined in both the transportation policy table and one of the sourcing policy tables.
For users converting models from Supply Chain Guru©, the default SCG© lane creation rule is “Intersection”.
Union
If the “Union” rule is selected, Cosmic Frog will generate transportation lanes if they are defined in either the transportation policy table or one of the sourcing policy tables.
