Freight management is a huge and incredibly important industry. Without proper load planning, delivery vehicles would not be able to make it to their destinations on time. Nearly all of the goods we buy on a regular basis rely on the supply chain moving with fluidity. Planning how truckloads can be optimized using up-to-date technology helps companies save money and time. Moving freight is a fairly complicated process. Most people don’t typically think about how food gets to their local grocery store or how clothes and other essential consumer products get to their respective retail destinations. In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about load planning. When done properly, load planning can improve the effectiveness of the supply chain.
What Is Load Planning?
The supply chain is a huge industry made up of many different occupations. Many of these jobs have to do with load planning. Loading and moving freight loaded on delivery vehicles involves a number of different procedures. This is why it’s important to use modern technology to help guide those who manage freight along the way. Load planning (also known as load optimization) is a process in which you consolidate freight to make shipping as efficient as possible. The biggest goal of load planning is to lower transportation costs on freight loaded on delivery vehicles. By rearranging freight loaded on delivery vehicles to fit the most cargo, you use fewer containers. The smaller the number of containers and vehicles you use, the less money you’re spending on transportation.
There are plenty of other advantages to proper load planning aside from saving on shipping costs, though. Being able to properly optimize your truck loads helps to avoid damaged products. It also helps companies save time with unloading and loading freight. All of this ultimately increases the customer’s satisfaction with the work that companies are doing. Depending on the product and the company selling it, a supply chain can be simple or incredibly complex. Either way, load planning is a huge part of the logistics process.
Loading Freight Using Traditional Methods
Load planning is a complicated process, and the traditional method of doing this task is manually planning. You have to know the specifics of the vehicle the freight will be delivered with. You also have to consider state and federal regulations regarding your cargo. Plus, you must take into account driver workloads and overtime. If any of these and other essential factors fail to be considered, the truckloads will not make it to their destinations on time. Logistics work is so difficult because there are so many different components to think about when moving goods. When dealing with load planning in the traditional way, you’ll probably want more than one person on your logistics team.
Even when you have similar loads going to one location, it can be challenging to figure out logistics manually. You can imagine how difficult it might be to plan a route with different products from separate companies going to different places. Manual planning is both time-consuming and less accurate than using modern technologies to help you out. Optimization software and other technology help ensure you are getting the most out of each truckload. You can use these tools to figure out what size trailers/containers you should be using. Additionally, you can generate a visual plan for how the cargo will fit in each container. This software also helps take into account constraints having to do with the product itself, the container, and potential regulations.
Transporting Truck Loads With Efficiency
Handling load planning with separate spreadsheets is a thing of the past. Your company will see the biggest ROI through using new optimization technology. Here are the ways you can benefit from optimized load planning.
Fewer Hours Spent on the Job
Optimization software cuts down on logistics worker hours quite a bit. Instead of having to sit down and seriously crunch the numbers, you can let the software help. Picking the right truck and driver for each load has never been easier. This allows you to cut down on labor costs as well as modify the route for any last-minute adjustments.
Increased Profits
Lowering delivery and operational costs is incredibly important to keeping your clients and protecting profits. More efficient loading on delivery vehicles can make all the difference here. Load planning the correct way helps reduce mileage and increase the capacity of each delivery. This results in greater profit margins, allowing you to offer competitive pricing without losing any profit. In turn, this will allow you to gain even more business.
The Importance of Proper Loading on Delivery Vehicles
Proper load planning is a solution to help your business grow and shouldn’t be left on the back burner. If you are still manually planning your loads, you’re missing out on higher profits and customer satisfaction. As technology advances, it’s important for companies to utilize it to their advantage. We all know that businesses that aren’t able to adapt to a changing environment often get left behind. Why would you ever give up an opportunity to make customers happier and increase the efficiency of your overall business? For the best load planning, drayage, warehousing, and other transportation and shipping services, connect with Heavy Weight Transport today. With specializations in loading and transporting overweight freight, we can help you save considerable time and money for your budget and efforts.
