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Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

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Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

#1

Post by vld5 »

When searching on the internet for these type of apps, I didn't find many that were open-source AND easy to use. A lot of them had complicated interfaces, although they had loads of features as well.

So what I had in mind when making Stack Solver was an app with a modern interface that has the most essential features. It is also well integrated with Microsoft Excel and renders a 3D customizable drawing.

Stack Solver is programmed in C# using the WPF framework to ensure it is fast and light. The interface is built using WPF UI, a library that allows it to keep up with modern trends (specifically the Fluent design).

It is a work in progress with tons of new features planned and it is my first "serious" project so I would appreciate any feedback :)

Show HN: A Modern Palletization App
github.com

Re: Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

#2

Post by aiiotnoodle »

Stuff like this is great.

Fast moving consumer goods is a vastly underrated represented technology sector, they do so much cool stuff that just goes completely unnoticed.

I started my first job in a warehouse and it really gave me a good look at the proprietary technology powering day to day life. It should be more open but few work on stuff like this.

Re: Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

#5

Post by chime »

Animats wrote: post #4

Robot palletizers use such algorithms, but do humans need a program for this? Another case of "Machines should think. People should work."

Absolutely. Pallet arrangements are usually a required spec from the customer to the vendor. The arrangement order matters considerably for shipping and needs to be agreed upon beforehand.

Re: Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

#6

Post by Closi »

Looks great! If you did do something related to truck fill, would be great to see if it could be generalised to 3D bin packing.

I’m currently working a free / open source warehouse management system so great to see other people working on supply chain problems!

Re: Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

#7

Post by bobim »

Ah! That's a pretty much orphan subject yet the world is constantly moving pallets.

For pallet stability you would like to have a convex perimeter so the stretch wrapping maintains the boxes effectively. And also criss-crossing boxes for shear resistance.

But you need to align as much boxes corners as possible to get vertical stiffness.

A solver proposing stacking patterns with these constraints would be outstanding.

Re: Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

#8

Post by FredPret »

The humble pallet is the red blood cell of civilization.

There's a ton of really cool optimization ideas like this in Industrial Engineering - factory production schedule optimizations, path optimizations, lots of knapsack problems. What a treat that there are people willing to pay for this kind of work.

Re: Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

#9

Post by rbaudibert »

I've had some friends in the logistics industry ask about a mobile app for this. How hard would it be to convert that to mobile? Are you depending on some complex libraries for the solver, or did you implement the algorithm yourself? I have 0 to no knowledge of C#.

Re: Show HN: A Modern Palletization App

#10

Post by vld5 »

rbaudibert wrote: post #9

I've had some friends in the logistics industry ask about a mobile app for this. How hard would it be to convert that to mobile? Are you depending on some complex libraries for the solver, or did you implement the algorithm yourself? I have 0 to no knowledge of C#.

I implemented the algorithm myself and although I don't have much experience with mobile apps programming I think that converting it to other programming languages or adapting it for other frameworks would be fairly easy. The real problem is the 3D rendering which is done using WPF 3D (Windows only), so I would need to completely rework it.
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