New and Recently introduced CARGOMANAGER Features.

For Release 5.1 - April 2010.


CARGOMANAGER is subject to an ongoing development program with major new upgrades being released approximately every 12 months. A brief summary of some of the new features is given below, together with enhancements made over the past year of so which you may have failed to spot when first introduced. 

The Main CARGOMANAGER Manual Menu can be accessed here.

  • The release of Windows 7 and the Explorer 8 have necessitated changes throughout the software to accommodate the new options offered in these environments, doing so in a manner which ensures compatibility with earlier versions of both browsers and operating systems. We have also made changes to try to ensure as far as possible that during both installation and running security products that the user may have installed do not generate false security alerts.
  • The new release includes some major enhancements to speed and functionality to the Weight Wizard function. This comes into play when packing a single container with a cargo which will be limited by the container weight limit, provides the user with the best possible set of cargo to pack in order to just meet the container weight restriction. See Section 4.8

 

  • A new PrintALL facility has been added to both single and multiple container operations of CARGOMANAGER. This allows users to quickly produce printed load plans for any individual container or for a complete batch of containers with a single selection. The PrintALL function is available from the 'Mini 3D' screen and is described in Section 12 of the manual installed with the software:

When select the user can then select whether 2D reports (as well as a 3D load plan) are to be produced and can select which containers are to be printed as shown below:

  • Wide-screen displays (see Appendix 1) are becoming more popular. Major updates across every screen support these displays, and we have also introduced a new 'calculation engine' which will speed up operation across the whole suite of software.
  • A number of new facilities have been added to help users achieve the exact positioning of cargo within the physical container to match the CARGOMANAGER solution. Firstly, on the 3D/2D screen diagrams the mouse may be used to point at any item and a 3 line 'mousetip' display provide both the item description, the width, Ht and Length of the item as it is placed within the container, and the exact co-ordinates within the container. In addition the screen and printed diagrams of the container are now labelled with dimensions etc and this facility has been further extended in the latest release.

 

 

  • From the menu on Screen 7 from where 3D/2D load plan printing is activated, a new menu entry Coordins allows you print out (and save to file) a report containing the descriptions, the exact co-ordinates within the container and the item dimensions / orientations of each item in the load plan. This also includes details of the distance of each item from the container door. This report can also be requested at the point where 2D/3D reports are about to be printed and from the PrintALL function described above.

 

  • A range of enhancements have been made in both input and output routines. These include the display of the total volume and weight of the consignment as it is being entered and the facility to suppress the printout of the full cargo list when printing the 2D/3D reports.

 

  • This release (according to licence) allows a datafile to contain details of up to 15,000 different item TYPES (and obviously various quantities of each of these up to 50,000 items in total), and when packing in MultiContainer mode loads requiring up to 1000 containers / trailers can be solved. In line with these changes the ITEMBASE has been expanded to allow up to 25,000 entries. We have also extended the range of priority values which can be set for each cargo item from the previous range of 1-99 to a new range 1-32000. We would recommend that for speed of processing the previous limits be used unless the extended range is required for a particular application.
  • A completely new Help system is now in place to support Windows 7. As with past releases this provides Help directly relevant to each individual screen, whilst the fully searchable Manual provides Help across the full application.

 

 

  • CARGOMANAGER users can now produce cargo plans for consignments requiring up to 1000 containers! in a single step, and displays the load plans for all of these (in miniature) and selectable from a single set of linked screens. A snapshot from part of one such screen is shown below (12 miniatures are shown on each screen). See Section 4.2

 

  • Users can now select any individual container from within a multi-container load and add cargo to the selected container on one or multiple occasions. 

 

  • CARGOMANAGER includes a new utility MAKEIB to enable users to quickly and easily create a product ITEMBASE from data that may be held in other formats. The utility enables a user with a spreadsheet containing product descriptions, sizes and weights to quickly convert this to the necessary ITEMBASE format.

 

  • The facilities available to input data held in the item database have been significantly enhanced. As well as making the generation of the ITEMBASE easier (see above), the ITEMBASE is automatically displayed on entry to the data entry screen. We have also introduced the use of the Shift or Caps Lock keys in conjunction with the database so that data entry of multiple products held in the ITEMBASE requires the minimum number of mouse/keystrokes.

 

  • CARGOMANAGER can now automatically compare the efficiency of using any of the 50 container / trailer sizes in your container database for a given multi-container load. After entering details of the multi-container consignment you can then select which of the container sizes in the database are available to you. CARGOMANAGER will then provide you with details on the number of containers of each size required for the consignment and also provide details on the space remaining in the final, part filled, container. A typical results screen is shown below:

 

We very much hope you find the above features, and others not detailed above, are of use to you and welcome feedback on new features you would like to see included in future releases.


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