Material Flow Planning Software
Visualize, analyze, and improve your material flow to reduce costs, lead times, and inefficiencies.
Why Material Flow Becomes Inefficient – and Where Optimization Potential Remains Hidden
Long Transport Routes Increase Time and Costs
Bottlenecks and Overloaded Areas Remain Unnoticed
Material Flow Is Analyzed in Isolation
Lack of Measurable Comparison between Scenarios
Long Transport Routes Increase Time and Costs
Bottlenecks and Overloaded Areas Remain Unnoticed
Material Flow Is Analyzed in Isolation
Lack of Measurable Comparison between Scenarios
Long Transport Routes Increase Time and Costs
Bottlenecks and Overloaded Areas Remain Unnoticed
Material Flow Is Analyzed in Isolation
Lack of Measurable Comparison between Scenarios
How to Analyze and Optimize Material Flow with visTable®
Efficient material flow requires more than isolated analysis. Transport routes, layout, and process dependencies must be understood and evaluated together. visTable® enables a structured approach to material flow planning by combining visualization, analysis, and scenario comparison in one consistent model.
Represent, Analyze, and Optimize Material Flow
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.
Sankey Diagram
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.
Spaghetti Diagram: Making Walking Routes Visible
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.
Logistics Evaluation: Improve and Compare Material Flow
With visTable® 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.
Excel Interface
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 a 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.
Ready to Reduce Transport Effort and Improve Flow Efficiency?
Visualize, analyze, and optimize your material flow within one connected factory model. Identify inefficiencies, compare scenarios, and make clear, data-driven decisions.
visTable® Key Features for Material Flow Planning
Explore the key functions that support layout planning, material flow analysis, and scenario-based decision-making.
Material Flow Analysis – visTable®logix
- Visualize material movements and relocations
- Clearly map out processes
- Objectively compare variants
2D Layout Planning – visTable®touch
- Create layouts using drag & drop
- Compare variants
- Easy setup, no CAD expertise required
Visualization – visTable®3D
- Show factory layouts realistically in 3D
- Virtually walk through transport routes and processes
- Clear and persuasive presentations for management and stakeholders
"From rough to fine and back again - with visTable® I can intuitively follow this planning approach. I particularly like the area balance and material flow evaluation."
How Companies Optimize Material Flow with visTable®
See how real projects reduce transport effort and improve flow efficiency with visTable®.
Frequently Asked Questions on Material Flow Planning with visTable®
What is material flow?
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.
What are the five stages of material flow?
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.
What does material flow encompass?
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.
How can material flow be optimized?
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.
How to conduct a material flow analysis?
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.
What is an example for material flow?
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.
How to visualize material flow?
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.
What key metrics does a material flow analysis provide?
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.
Can I use data from ERP systems?
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.
Can transport times be determined?
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.
Do I need to purchase additional visTABLE® modules for material flow analysis?
That’s not necessary. visTABLE® always includes all available features. There’s no need to order or enable anything separately.
What is the cost of this software?
You can find examples on the pricing page. For an exact calculation, we recommend coordinating with our sales team.
Insights on Material Flow Planning
Material Flow Planning Software
Visualize, analyze, and improve your material flow to reduce costs, lead times, and inefficiencies.
