General Cargo Planning
Cargo Stowage Methods
SimpleStow GC provides variety of stowage planning tools and methods intended for specific types of cargo and operational requirements.
Stowage of a Single Unit
With one mouse click you can place one unit of general or project cargo in the desired location in a hold or on the deck. The overall dimensions of the cargo unit are immediately rendered in the graphical plan.
Once in the plan, with the aid of the mouse drag-and-drop function or the keyboard buttons, the unit, or a group of selected units, can be rotated, moved and nudged in to the precise position.
Stowage of Multiple Units
With the mouse simply drag selected break bulk cargo from the Cargo List and drop it in the hold. SimpleStow GC will distribute the cargo within the constraints of the hold following customizable set of stowage rules.
You can limit the area to be occupied by cargo in the hold using the Stowage in Polygon method.
With the Stowage in Rectangle method you can easily line up rows and blocks of uniform cargo units on decks.
Stowage by Mass
If dimensions of cargo items are not known, or it is not practical to plan that cargo as individual units, you can stow them by mass as a solid block, spreading over the entire floor in the hold, or the selected portion of the hold. For that method SimpleStow GC relies on the stowage factor instead of the cargo units’ dimensions.
Ultimately, you can override all dimensions and stowage factors, distributing the mass of cargo in the graphically defined volume.
Stowage Rules
The main stowage planning method in SimpleStow GC is drag-and-drop cargo in a desired hold. The program uses stowage rules to distribute cargo in the selected compartment. For each parcel of cargo, you can instantly modify the quantity to stow, stacking limitations, orientation, in what corner to start and in what direction to proceed with stowing the cargo.
Stowage Conflicts Check
SimpleStow GC has a built in Stowage Conflicts Checking Routine.
Each time you place or move cargo in the plan, in the background the program automatically monitors for possible stowage problems in all ports throughout the entire voyage. If a problem would arise in any port of the voyage, the program visually indicates all the detected conflicts with the graphical alarm.
The user has flexibility to instruct SimpleStow GC to ignore certain types of conflicts and don't show the alarms when they occur.