In a delivery record, we have a field showing the default cartons selected for the job to be packed into:

 

This is designed to provide the user a quick lookup of suitably defined cartons that the product will fit into. 
This refers back to the carton definitions under Freight Admin.

 

 

The quantity of cartons as well as the number of items per carton are calculated based on the cartons’ total volume. The total volume of the order is divided by the volume of a carton to determine the number of cartons required. If a Max Loaded Weight has been applied to the carton definition, that too is taken into consideration when calculating the total number of cartons required.

 

HOW CARTONS ARE CALCULATED

Control over the automated selection of the cartons is managed by the back-end setting ‘Carton Ordering Logic’. 
This effectively sorts the returned cartons into an order based on two or three aspects.

These are:

Smallest Carton

Least Cartons Required

(Least) Wasted 2d Space

 

Smallest carton will prefer the smallest carton that the order will fit into.

Least cartons required will tend to favour larger cartons.

Wasted 2d Space is the flat area of the carton in ‘plain’ view that is not covered by the product. It will attempt to fit a single item into the bottom of the box, then measure the area around it to see how much extra space there is in the box. It then does this with every other orientation that item can be stuck into the box (sideways etc). It then chooses the box with the tightest fit, i.e. least amount of wasted space around that item.

The returned cartons are sorted in order, determined by the setting. It sets the priority of the above criteria when making the calculations.

 

The options for the sort order are:

             Smallest Carton, Least Cartons Required

Smallest Carton, Least Required, Wasted 2d Space

Least Cartons Required, Smallest Carton

Least Cartons Required, Smallest Carton, Wasted 2d Space

Least Cartons Required, Wasted 2d Space, Smallest Carton

Wasted 2d Space, Least Cartons Required, Smallest Carton

 

Smallest Carton, Least Cartons Required will order by carton size then by the lowest quantity.

Smallest Carton, Least Required, Wasted 2d Space will order by carton size then by the lowest quantity and finally by the least wasted 2d space.

Least Cartons Required, Smallest Carton will order by the lowest quantity then the smallest carton.

Least Cartons Required, Smallest Carton, Wasted 2d Space will order by the lowest quantity then the smallest carton and finally by the least wasted 2d space.

Least Cartons Required, Wasted 2d Space, Smallest Carton will order by lowest quantity then wasted 2d space and finally carton size.

Wasted 2d Space, Least Cartons Required, Smallest Carton will order by wasted 2d space then lowest quantity and finally carton size.

 

Behind the Scenes

* We try to fit a single item into the box at least 1 of 6 ways (flat, rotated 2 times horizontally, flipped on its side and rotated horizontally, then on its side the other way and rotated horizontally)
* If it fits, we mark that carton type as a viable option
* For all viable options, we calculate how many cartons we'd need to fit the full product in. This is calculated by the total volume of the product divided by the volume of the box
* We calculate the wasted 2d space by fitting a single item into the box as above, then calculating the minimum 2d space remaining around the item
* We use your selected carton selection rules, along with this collected data, to decide which is the best carton for shipping your product

 

EXAMPLES

In this example we have the setting to calculate based on: 

Least Cartons Required, Smallest Carton

The job is x20,000 A5 Flyers.

The default cartons selected are A3. Click on the edit icon to open the ‘Manage Cartons’ modal:

 

You can see that 9 cartons are required with x2223 in each:

 

You can change the default carton:

 

Changing the carton shows the updated carton qty and items per box count:

Where you have an order with mixed product sizes, each product will have a Carton Selector. 

The freight control will show the cartons used…

 

 

Clicking on the Edit Carton button opens the carton details scree

Using a setting to use the smallest cartons available, the selections are A5 and A4 cartons:

 

Using a setting to use the least cartons, the same jobs default to A3 cartons: