From 4 days in Excel to minutes: how a national manufacturer automated container planning
Manufacturing
A national manufacturer replaced a manual, spreadsheet-driven load-planning process — which took up to four days per shipment — with ContainerMath, cutting planning to a few minutes while improving container utilization and eliminating rework.
The challenge
The team shipped dozens of mixed-SKU export containers a month. Every one started from a blank spreadsheet: collecting carton dimensions by email, summing CBM by hand, and guessing at how cargo would actually stack inside a 20ft or 40ft container. A single quantity change meant redoing the whole plan. The process routinely stretched across four working days and several people — and still left containers under-filled because nobody could see the 3D layout before the cargo was physically loaded.
Before vs. after
- 1Chase carton specs by emailOperations emailed the warehouse for each SKU's length, width, height, and weight. Specs lived in scattered threads and a master spreadsheet that was usually out of date.
- 2Type CBM math into ExcelEach line item's volume was calculated and summed by hand. There was no automatic check against the container's volume or payload limit, so errors surfaced only at the dock.
- 3Sketch the stack by trial and errorA planner drew rough layouts on paper or in slides to estimate how many cartons would fit and whether the load would balance — essentially guesswork.
- 4Pick the container from gut feelChoosing 20ft vs 40ft vs 40ft High Cube came down to experience, which meant frequently over-booking space or paying for a second container that wasn't needed.
- 5Redo everything on every changeA new SKU or a changed quantity invalidated the spreadsheet and the diagram, so the planner started over — the single biggest source of the multi-day turnaround.
- 6Hand off a static planThe final plan was printed or emailed as a flat document the warehouse had to interpret on its own, with no loading sequence.
- 1Store each SKU once in the Box LibraryCarton dimensions and weights are saved a single time and pulled into any plan — no more chasing specs over email.
- 2Generate a 3D load plan in one stepThe planner selects cartons and quantities; ContainerMath computes placement, layering, and orientation automatically and renders it in 3D.
- 3See CBM and payload liveVolume utilization and total weight update instantly against the selected container's limits — the manual spreadsheet math is gone entirely.
- 4Compare vessels in secondsSwitching between 20ft, 40ft, 40ft High Cube, reefer, or truck/van presets shows exactly what fits best, so the right container is chosen on data, not gut.
- 5Revise instantlyChanging a quantity or swapping a SKU recomputes the plan and every metric live — what used to trigger a full redo now takes seconds.
- 6Save and share a real loading guideThe plan is saved for reuse and exported as a PDF — including a step-by-step loading sequence the warehouse can follow on the floor.
Inside ContainerMath: the parts they used
The results
- Per-shipment planning dropped from up to four days to a few minutes.
- Container utilization improved by roughly 20% by being able to compare vessels and see the 3D fit before loading.
- SKU dimensions now live in one place, ending the email back-and-forth and out-of-date spreadsheets.
- Last-minute order changes no longer trigger a full re-plan — the load and its metrics update live.
Client's feedback:We went from dreading load planning to finishing it in the time it takes to make coffee. The 3D view alone pays for itself — we stopped shipping half-empty containers.
Stop guessing in spreadsheets. Build a 3D load plan with live CBM and payload.
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ContainerMathThe industry standard for 3D container cargo packing and loading plans. Optimize layouts, maximize volume, and reduce shipping overhead.
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