In most cases, cargo damage is hard to avoid and is very tricky to deal with. It not only means the loss for companies but also, more importantly, will reduce the satisfaction of clients who have made the order of the cargoes, possibly resulting in the complaints of these clients and even worse, the customer attrition.
This is a container where the cargo falls down.
How can LoadMaster cargo loading optimization software (http://loadmaster.biz) help reduce cargo damage and avoid the potential loss for companies? Let’s check it out!
As for the same kind of cargoes, we can try to avoid the cargo damage by setting three parameters: Placement Constrain, Max Stack and Max Overhang Ratio(%).
In LoadMaster, “Placement constrain” refers to how cargoes are placed in containers. There are 6 default methods of placement in the software: Stand, Stand&Rotate, Side, Side&Rotate, Lay, Lay&Rotate. Stand means the height of cargoes are vertical to the container ground and Stand&Rotate is to rotate horizontally 90 degrees on the basis of Stand. Side means the width of cargoes are vertical to the container ground and Side&Rotate is to rotate horizontally 90 degrees on the basis of Side. Lay means the length of cargoes are vertical to the container ground and Lay&Rotate is to rotate horizontally 90 degrees on the basis of Lay.
This is Stand, Stand&Rotate placement.
This is Side, Side&Rotate placement.
This is Lay, Lay&Rotate placement.
Different methods of placement result in different load capacities even for the same cargo. For example, refrigerators are usually very tall in the direction of container height so they are often required to be placed with their height vertical to the ground when they are placed at the bottom layer. When placed in this way, refrigerators have the biggest loading capacity. However, the remaining space in the direction of container height is not enough for another layer of refrigerators with the same placement as those at the bottom layer. But there’s gonna be a waste of container room if not using the remaining space. Under such circumstances, you can set that the second layer of refrigerators be placed with their height parallel to the container ground. Since the bottom layer of refrigerators have the biggest loading capacity, so they can support the second layer of refrigerators. Therefore, you can try to avoid cargo damage while making the best use of container space by setting the Placement Constrain.
This is a picture of refrigerators with different orientations in a container.
Setting “Max Stack” can also help reduce or avoid cargo damage. Max Stack means the maximum number of stacking layers of the same kind of cargoes within the range of load capacity of this kind of cargoes. Sometimes even if there is still remaining space in the direction of container height, cargoes are not allowed to be stacked for one more layer because that way cargoes at lower layers may not be able to bear.
This is Max Stack.
In practical container loading operations, it is generally not required for the objects placed on top to be completely supported by the underlying objects. Partial overhang of the objects on top is allowed. “Max Overhang Ratio” refers to the maximum overhang ratio of the cargoes that can be placed without support below. The default Max Overhang Ratio of the software is 33.3%, meaning that this cargo can have one-third of itself unsupported. In most cases, cargoes can overhang to a small extent. But as for cargoes made of glass, it is not recommended to set Max Overhang Ratio as 0 because they’re easy to be broken during turbulences.
This is the comparison of different overhang rate.
As for the same kind of cargoes, we can try to reduce and avoid cargo damage by setting three parameters Placement Constrain, Max Stack and Max Overhang Ratio(%). What about different cargoes? How should we set in the cargo loading optimization software? Please stay tuned and we can figure it out in the next post!