In the process of calculating load plans, there are many factors that may affect the selection of container/truck/trailer type. In most cases, manual knowledge is the determinant to choose which type is the best fit. While sometimes, some objective factors such as the container shortage caused by COVID, increase of shipping costs will also affect the final decision on which type to use. However, all these affecting factors shouldn’t be scientific standards for companies to determine which type to use.
Now with LoadMaster, a scientific load planning optimization software, you can determine which type of container/truck/trailer to use according to different standards. Let’s see!
First, the default rule is “The software will automatically select the container type that minimizes the number of containers used”. For example, if a batch of products can be loaded into one 40HC, then the software won’t select two 20GP.
Second, the load calculator can “Select containers in the same sequence as the input container list”. Under this rule, you should fill in the number of each container type and add the container in a sequence you want. During the covid, it’s hard to get some types of containers. Therefore, companies could only load the products with the containers they could get. For example, according to customer Mr. Yang, during the covid, they only had two 40HCs at one time when they needed to deliver goods. So they needed to load the products into two 40HC first and then into other types of containers. In this case, Mr. Yang should add Container 40HC first and then change the number of quantity to 2, and then add other types of containers. After this, the software would load the products into two 40HC first and then into other containers.
Third, this load planner can help generate the most cost-effective selection and match of different containers under the rule “Automatically select containers to minimize the cost of containers used for loading”. In such case, users need to fill in the cost of each type of container in the interface of adding containers.
Fourth, the cargo loading software can select the type of containers/trucks/trailers with the highest volume usage rate. For example, a batch of goods can both be loaded into a 40HC and two 20GPs. If under this rule, then two 20GPs will be the final loading result instead of one 40HC.
Now you can think about what kind of standards you may adopt while selecting container/truck/trailer types and then make the most scientific choice with the help of LoadMaster load planning optimization software!