5.1.15 How to lock certain containers and recalculate the remaining containers

When designing a packing plan with LoadMaster, you can fix the stowage plan of some certain containers unchanged, and recalculate for other single or several containers. You can modify the load orientations, loading parameters, and loading rules of such containers, and you can also add and delete the goods.

Let's use an example to explain.

Cargo data:

Name	Quantity	Length（cm）	Width（cm）	Height（cm）
A	850	76.4	47.1	39.5
B	1000	72.7	42.2	38.2
C	1100	62.2	39.2	34.2

Loading requirements:

1) Cargo A B C can only be vertical to the ground in height direction.

2) Put the same goods together as much as possible, if there is space above the container, you can put other goods.

Calculate how many 40HC will be used to install.

According to the loading requirements, the task type [Loading Container/Multiple Cargoes] should be selected and click to enter.

Enter the [Basic Information] interface. The items in this page is optional, and users can fill in the PO number, order number or destination information according to actual work requirements for later check. Next, start to designing the plan:

Step 1: Click [Cargo] on the left to enter the cargo interface. For there are lots of cargo types, you should add them in batches by [Add Cargo>Import From Excel]. Firstly, click [Add Cargo>Get Excel Template] to download the Excel template and save it to a certain location in your computer.

Secondly, fill in the template with the cargo information.

①Copy the name, quantity, length, width, height, and weight (gross weight of a single box) of the goods into the template, which are required items. Pay attention to the matching of the units. “Weight” refers to the gross weight of a single carton or box of goods. If the cargo is too light, the “Weight” can be ignored and not filled in, and the system will default to "1".

②Then define the load orientations of the goods. For it is required that cargoes can be placed as the height is vertical to the ground, that is only “stand” and “stand & rotate” are allowed, you should fill in “0” under the “allowed” Column of other orientations. “0” means not allowed such load orientation, leave it blank or “1” means allowed.

③Define the properties for loading. For there are no other requirements, you do not need to set other parameters, leaving them as the default value. The specific details of each parameter can be found in this guidance documentation. Save and close the template when finishing.

Thirdly, return the [Cargo] page, click [Add Cargo>Import From Excel], choose the template in the dialog box, and open it. Then the cargo information will be imported to the task.

Step 2: Click [Container] on the left to enter the [Container] interface. For the user does not know the type and quantity of container that should be used, it is necessary to add all the commonly used container types so that the system can select the most appropriate container from such containers.

For the commonly used container information is already maintained in the database, click [Import from Database], check the 20GP, 40GP and 40HC in the pop-up box, and then click [Add]. Edit the corner castings size and reserved size of the container, the size of the corner castings is 10*10*10cm. Precautions for defining the reserved size, please refer to "How to simulate carton expansion and manual interval".

Step 3: Set the loading rules on the [Loading Rules] page. Since the same goods are required to be placed together as much as possible, select the [Place the same cargoes next to each other] under the [Stacking Method], and pay attention to the setting of the [Cross depth]. The default value of the cross depth in the system is 2 meters. In this case, you can first calculate based on the default value. For more details, you can refer to “Cross depth” above in this guiding book.

Click [Optimize] to generate the loading plan. In the container list on the left, you can see that six 40HCs are to be used. Click the serial number of the container respectively, you can see the same goods placed together as much as possible through the 3D stereogram. In the first and second containers, there is some space above for other goods but they are not loaded. That is for the reason that the cross depth of 2 meters is set.

In the loading rule interface, set the cross depth to 12 meters.

Click [Optimize] and come up with another plan. You can see that some other goods are placed on the top of the second container. But some cargo C are still remaining in the sixth container, which could have been placed on the top of the first container.

The reason is that [Place the same cargoes next to each other] refers to the goods in a container of front and back direction, not up and down. In this case, the "Lock" function can help to solve such problems.

Click [Final Loading Stage] and then tick the [Lock] box of container 2 3 4 5 under the [Loaded unit list]; and then click the [Loading Rules] to change the [Stacking Method] to [Free combination].

Then click [Optimize] and the loading plan is obtained. Container 2 3 4 5 has not changed, but the container 1 and 6 have a new loading plan. Finally, five 40HCs are used.

After the scheme audit is completed, you can use your mobile phone to guide the on-site loading and download the loading report to make the packing list and customs declaration. Details please refer to this guidance book.