Load capacities, or load parameters, allow you to define cargo limitations of a vehicle. This may be based on weight, volume, units (boxes, pallets), or passengers. These capacities are used as constraints during your routing. In this article, we will cover how to create and apply load capacities to your vehicles and orders.
| Who can use this feature | |
| All plans | |
| Users that have administrator privileges | |
| All regions | |
What are load capacities?
Load capacities are a vehicle option that allow you to determine how much a particular vehicle can hold. Delivery vehicles are limited by their load/capacity such as:
- Number of boxes that can fit into the vehicle
- Weight of orders that can be loaded on the vehicle
- Volume of orders that can fit into the vehicle
- Number of pallets that can be loaded onto the vehicle
OptimoRoute lets you define how much your vehicles can hold and then adds orders to your routes by optimizing the load so that you use the most possible space in the vehicle, without going over.
Defining capacities
In OptimoRoute, you can define load capacities that will serve as constraints in your routing to make sure your vehicles are not overloaded. You can activate up to 4 capacity constraints and have the freedom to decide how they are labeled.
By default, weight and volume are used. To change this:
- Go to Administration→Vehicles
- Choose “Capacities” from the left sub-menu
- Edit the labels for load capacities and units
- Activate the ones you want to use in routing
For example, if we want to use only the number of boxes as the load/capacity constraint for our vehicles we would:
- Change the label for Capacity #1 from "Weight" to "No. Boxes".
- Change the unit for Capacity #1 to an empty value
- Disable Capacity #2
- Apply the changes
Activating and deactivating capacities
There are set of 4 capacities with check boxes. The check boxes indicate that a capacity is activated for use in routing.
In the example below, you can see that weight and volume are activated and boxes and pallets are not. This means that weight and volume are the only ones that will be shown on orders under load parameters (see below).
| Tip: If vehicle load/capacity is not relevant (i.e. if you are performing field service instead of deliveries, or vehicle capacity is never a limiting factor) simply disable all capacity labels. |
Changing capacity labels
You can change the names of capacity labels, however keep in mind that this will change all past labels as well. However, this will not affect the quantity data. Data from deleted capacities remain in the past/history of the account and past orders.
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If you rename a capacity label, past data will show with the new capacity label. |
Define vehicle maximum capacity
After we have configured the load/capacity constraints we want to use, it’s time to indicate each vehicle’s maximum capacity.
To do this:
- Go to Administration→Vehicles
- Choose “Capacities” from the left sub-menu
- Click into each vehicle profile
- Edit the capacity field(s) that appear under the vehicle’s details tab
This can also be performed in bulk by selecting multiple vehicles and clicking "Edit vehicles".
| Now is also a good time to make sure that each Driver profile (also within your Administration menu) has a default vehicle assignment. This step is required if using vehicle capacities. |
Define order load
Finally, we are ready to enter the load for the orders.
- Go to "Plan & Optimize"
- Select the order(s) you want to modify
- Enter the load in the order detail in the "Load parameters" section
You can also specify the load parameters during import from MS Excel by entering the values in columns Load #1 to Load #4. In this example, we are using only Load #1 (No. boxes) so columns load #2-#4 are empty.
Using capacities in routing
So now that we have:
- Defined capacities
- Defined each vehicles maximum load capacity
- Assigned vehicles to drivers
- Input order loads on orders
It's time to actually see how it is used in routing.
When you plan your routes, OptimoRoute’s algorithm will now consider capacities as a constraint. This means that orders on a given route will be limited by the capacity set for a particular vehicle.
Sometimes your orders will not be scheduled due to load capacity constraints. You will alerted about this in the “Unscheduled orders” tab.
| Tip: The planning setting to allow drivers to return to depot to pick up more orders will allow more orders to be fit onto a route when capacity is limited in a vehicle. |
Viewing order capacities
In the order table you can add capacities to the overview by adding the columns for each parameter. You can also see capacities when editing an order in the "Load capacities" section.