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- Users may be aware of the further major changes Microsoft has
introduced during the year including enhancements to Windows
Vista and the new Explorer browser. In addition wide-screen
displays are becoming more popular. The new release contains
major updates across every screen to support all of these areas, and
we have also introduced a new 'calculation engine' which will speed
up operation across the whole suite of software.
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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.
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- 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
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- 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.
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- Version 4.9 of CARGOMANAGER has (depending on license) been
considerably enhanced with regard to the number of item types which
can form a consignment and the number of containers / trailers which
can be packed in a single step. 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.
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- The software is now fully compatible with the latest Microsoft Vista
operating environment. Amongst the work done to ensure this was the
introduction of a completely new Help system. As with past releases
this provides Help directly relevant to each individual screen, whilst
the fully
searchable Manual provides Help across the full application.
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- To support both users with a small number of items and those using
the extended ranges now available, a variety of algorithm
enhancements have been introduced to speed up processing.
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- 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
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- The software now includes a new and powerful utility Weight
Wizard which 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
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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:
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