Visualize and optimize your material flow

  • Make transports, routes, and relocations visible
  • Analyze and compare walking paths and material flows
  • Compare and optimize scenarios
  • Transparency through key metrics and charts

An efficient material flow determines the performance of both production and logistics. If transport routes are too long or spaces are used inefficiently, costs and lead times increase. With visTABLE®, you can design and analyze your material flow digitally, identify weak points instantly, and make improvements measurable. Its intuitive visualization and evaluation features – for example through interactive diagrams – guide users step by step through the process of material flow optimization.

System designs can be evaluated and optimized from multiple perspectives at the same time, taking into account all relevant interdependencies. This holistic approach leads to better management of raw materials, materials, and inventories – and enables transparent, flexible, and cost-efficient production planning.

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Materialfluss im Werksgelände eines produzierenden Unternehmens

Why material flow often becomes a bottleneck

Inefficient material flow design leads to high costs, long lead times, and unclear responsibilities. Without clear visualization, many improvement opportunities remain hidden. visTABLE® makes your material flows visible and reveals where to take action to sustainably improve your processes.

Avoid bottlenecks and get started with visTABLE® today.

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Long distances and unnecessary transport

Overloaded storage areas

Poorly utilized workspaces

Data chaos caused by Excel spreadsheets or individual solutions

Linking material flow and factory layout in visTABLE® software

Represent, analyze, and optimize material flow

  • Digitally map walkways and transports
  • Measure workloads and relocations
  • Compare scenarios and document improvements

Visualize the logistical relationships within your company quickly and easily. The visTABLE® software automatically displays the material flow based on the defined processes in the layout. Even the graphical representation of transports provides valuable insights for targeted material flow planning in production and logistics without the need for complex material flow simulations.

Analyze the movement of materials and information within your organization and draw well-founded conclusions.

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Sankey diagram

  • Quantity-proportional mapping of flows through production
  • ABC analysis of the transport load on routes
  • Identify bottlenecks in time

A Sankey diagram visualizes how many transports actually pass through specific routes, revealing potential bottlenecks such as heavily used pathways, loading areas, or warehouse gates. visTABLE® provides an integrated graphical material flow analysis directly within your factory layout. The clear visualization allows you to focus on the most critical flows and achieve logistical objectives faster and more efficiently — turning material flow and inventory into strategic management tools.

Analyze your material flow with Sankey diagrams. 

Analyze material flows
Visualization of material flow in the factory layout with the use of a Sankey diagram
Optimization of the employment within the assembly line facilitate the work in production

Spaghetti diagram: Making walking routes visible

  • Clearly view paths and distances
  • Instantly reveal unnecessary material handling
  • Systematically reduce travel distances

A Spaghetti Diagram visualizes the actual movement of materials and personnel within the factory. If paths are too long or cross unnecessarily, transport costs and lead times increase.

With visTABLE®, you automatically generate Spaghetti Diagrams directly from your layout data. This allows you to identify where movements are being wasted and where travel distances can be shortened.

Gain transparency into your travel distances using Spaghetti Diagrams.

Optimize path length

Logistics Evaluation: Improve and compare material flow

  • Evaluation of material flow variants
  • Make improvements measurable
  • Decisions based on key figures

With visTABLE®’s Logistics Evaluation, you can quickly and objectively validate variations of your material flow. The reason for this is the number of scenarios that arise in logistics planning. Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as transport effort, space utilization, and rearrangements instantly display improvements as a percentage. This allows you to see at a glance which scenario is more efficient and sustainably boost the performance of your logistics.

Data-driven assessment of your material flow planning.

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Material flow analysis with evaluation of transport routes

Excel interface

  • Import and export in *.xlsx format
  • Degree of resolution for material flow data selectable
  • Practical plausibility check during import

Using Excel, you export the results and the data of material flow analysis or import your preliminary material and process data to be diagrammed. Because data on the manufacturing process and information on the material are often distributed in operational systems with different objectives. Material flow planning therefore requires the preparation of diverse supply chain data. visTABLE® software provides practical templates for this, e.g. flow matrix or transport table as a basis for diagrams or flow charts.

Material flow analysis as lever to improve

MFA involves examining the two critical parameters of material quantity (flow intensity) and process path (path length) within manufacturing. Both parameters should be kept to a minimum as far as possible. For the material quantity, the one piece flow is considered the minimum, since less than one piece cannot flow and nothing accumulates within the system if only one piece flows at a time.

The distance between the value-adding process steps depends largely on how much space is taken up by the resources themselves and the necessary transport routes in between (layout planning). Looking at the value stream, this path should be as close to zero as possibly, i.e. direct transfer from station to station. But in most practical cases, such a simple principle can only be implemented in individual production sections. At the system level, comprehensive analysis, planning, optimization and management become necessary work.

Abbildung Anwenderbericht Weidmüller mit Software visTABLE

Discover how other companies have successfully implemented their factory planning with visTABLE®.

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Making Bottlenecks in Material Flow Visible with visTABLE®

tHIS IS WHY COMPANIES RELY ON visTABLE®

"From rough to fine and back again - with visTABLE®touch I can intuitively follow this planning approach. I particularly like the area balance and material flow evaluation."

Roman Kühnlein, Head of Processes and Networking Design at Weidmüller

Key features of visTABLE®

All functions are included in a complete package for digital factory planning.

Material flow analysis – visTABLE®logix

  • Visualize material movements and relocations
  • Clearly map out processes
  • Objectively compare variants

visTABLE®logix enables you to systematically analyze material flows and instantly recognize optimization potential.

2D layout planning – visTABLE®touch

  • Create layouts using drag & drolp
  • Compare variants
  • Easy setup, no CAD expertise required

With visTABLE®touch, you design your production and warehouse layouts easily and flexibly in 2D, creating the foundation for all material flow planning.

Visualization – visTABLE®3D

  • Show factory layouts realistically in 3D
  • Virtually walk through transport routes and processes
  • Clear and persuasive presentations for management and stakeholders

visTABLE®3D provides an immersive, realistic experience of your material flow, convincing stakeholders through clear visualization.

From Analysis to Final Implementation

Test the visTABLE® material flow software free for 14 days and discover the simplicity of material flow analysis and optimization.

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What you always wanted to know about material flow

Test the visTABLE® material flow software free for 14 days and discover the simplicity of material flow analysis and optimization.

14 DAYS FREE TRIAL

Material flow encompasses all movements of materials and information within a company, from goods receiving, warehousing, and transport to provision in production. With visTABLE®, these processes can be transparently visualized and efficiently controlled.

The typical 5 steps of material flow are: Transport, Handling, Storage, Picking (Order Picking), and Provision. With visTABLE®, you visually plan each of these steps and receive key figures for optimization.

Material flow includes all logistical processes concerning the transport, storage, and processing of goods. visTABLE® clearly visualizes these processes in layouts, Spaghetti, or Sankey diagrams.

Optimization is achieved through shorter paths, better space utilization, clear material provisioning, and reduced internal transfers. visTABLE® supports you in this with static simulations and key figures.

A material flow analysis describes the mapping, visualization, and evaluation of all material movements. With visTABLE®, you can visualize flows using diagrams, identify bottlenecks, and implement targeted optimizations.

A typical example is the movement of raw materials from goods receipt to storage, then to production, followed by assembly, and finally to shipping. visTABLE® fully represents these processes.

Spaghetti and Sankey diagrams are well suited for this purpose. Spaghetti diagrams show paths and distances, while Sankey diagrams visualize flow quantities. Both are integrated into visTABLE® and make material flow easy to understand.

The material flow analysis in visTABLE® calculates transport effort either as cost in euros or as distance in kilometers. Route lengths in the layout are automatically determined and multiplied by the transport intensities from the production process. This allows you to display both the simple route length and the transport effort for each transport type, and export the results to Excel. Filters enable clear visualization with direct graphical feedback in the layout. In addition, transport intensities are calculated for individual route segments and evaluated using an ABC analysis. Particularly useful are the effort indicators, which show improvements in material flow planning as a percentage. This allows you to quickly quantify potential savings, for example when optimizing an existing state.

Routings and bills of materials from ERP systems usually contain only basic information for layout and material flow planning. They often need to be enriched outside the ERP system. visTABLE® provides a powerful Excel interface for this purpose, allowing you to stay flexible and supplement additional information – for example, for planning new products – from other sources within the company.

Determining transport times is not directly possible in the software, as additional data on material handling must be considered. Therefore, use a calculation system that already includes the relevant process modules, such as MTM-Logistics. By supplying such a calculation with the route lengths from visTABLE®, you can quickly obtain reliable planned time values for your logistics processes.

That’s not necessary. visTABLE® always includes all available features. There’s no need to order or enable anything separately.

You can find examples on our pricing page. For an exact calculation, we recommend coordinating with our sales team.

Still unsure? Deepen your knowledge.

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