Llamasoft updates supply chain, transportation modeling platforms

   The supply chain design software developer LLamasoft on Tuesday made available what it said are “significant technology and usability enhancements” in the new release of its Supply Chain Guru and Transportation Guru network design products.
   Newly-added capabilities in version 8.0 of both products are aimed at helping businesses right-size inventory levels and minimize transportation route costs.
   Supply Chain Guru 8.0 includes the Inventory Guru module, which is designed to enables companies to analyze and properly classify demand, factor all aspects of inventory for both existing and new supply chain structures and simulate real-world behavior. The update also includes multi-objective optimization, a tool within Supply Chain Guru 8.0 that allows customers to meet business challenges that include multiple competing goals.
   “The tool automatically optimizes to and provides insight into any two of 19 available objectives and then builds a trade-off curve allowing analysts to visualize the interaction and span between different options,” Llamasoft said.
   Meanwhile, Llamasoft said that transportation backhaul optimization is now available as part of the vehicle route optimization module in Transportation Guru and Supply Chain Guru. The tool identifies the most efficient inbound pick-ups based on the last stop of the outbound route in order to minimize the overall route cost by minimizing the time and distance trucks are driven empty.
   “We began our partnership with LLamasoft on Supply Chain Guru 2.0 in 2003 and are still an active customer at version 8.0,” said Ettore Piccirillo, a group director at Unilever. “The reasons we chose LLamasoft back then are the same reasons we continue our relationship today: LLamasoft offers the most innovative supply chain design technology and the people we work with are knowledgeable and dedicated to customer success.”