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A pallet load planner decides order, not just fit.
Fitting boxes into a cuboid is the easy half. The half that damages freight is the ORDER: which case carries weight, which one sits on a crushable carton, and how tall the stack gets before it stops being safe. This page lists the inputs a planner needs, the limits Tiercube plans against today, and the questions it does not answer.
The five inputs, and why each one changes the plan
A planner that only knows case dimensions can pack a box. It cannot protect the load.
| Input | Why the planner needs it | Missing it means |
|---|---|---|
| Case L × W × H | Layer geometry, rotation, overhang. | Pallets that look full and are not, or cases hanging off the edge. |
| Case weight | Weight cap per pallet and the heavy-on-bottom order. | Heavy cases land on light ones. |
| Cases per layer / stackability | Whether a product may carry another at all. | Non-stackable goods get stacked. |
| Crush limit (lb a case can carry) | The only honest way to stop crushing. | The planner has to guess (see the heuristic below). |
| Pallet type and caps | Footprint, tare, height and weight ceilings. | Plans that are legal on paper and refused at the dock. |
The limits Tiercube plans against
These are the defaults in the engine, not illustrations. Every number here is read from the product’s own constants, and a test fails if the page and the engine disagree.
| Limit | Default | What it protects |
|---|---|---|
| Pallet footprint | 48 × 40 in (GMA) | Trailer and container fit. EUR 120 × 80 cm and 42 × 42 in are built in too. |
| Pallet tare | 45 lb | Shipped weight, so the freight quote is not short. |
| Target height | 68.9 in (175 cm) | Double-stacking and door clearance. |
| Hard ceiling above target | +3.937 in (10 cm) | Opening one more pallet for two cases. Above the target the plan warns; above the ceiling it refuses. |
| Weight per pallet | 3,000 lb incl. tare | Forklift and floor limits. |
| Base support | ≥ 75% of a case base supported | Overhang collapse. This one is hard: a plan that breaks it is rejected, not warned. |
| Heavy on bottom | upper layer avg ≤ +15% | Crushing and a high centre of gravity. |
| Crush fallback | 8 × case weight | Used ONLY when the product has no measured crush limit. |
| Top block | max 2 cases of one product, 24 in | Towers. A 45 in column of one SKU is what tips over in transit. |
The crush fallback is a heuristic, and we say so in the output. If a product carries a measured crush limit, the planner uses that number. If it does not, it assumes a case can carry eight times its own weight — a rule of thumb, not a test result. Enter real limits for fragile goods.
What comes out: a build card someone can follow
A plan nobody can execute on the floor is a spreadsheet, not a plan.
- One card per pallet — layers bottom to top, each layer drawn to scale, case count and SKU per layer.
- Running weight and height — what the pallet weighs and measures when it leaves the line.
- Warnings in place — forced height, crush risk, heavy-on-top, unsupported base, centre-of-gravity drift.
- Leftovers named — cases that did not fit are listed with the reason, not silently dropped.
What a pallet load planner does not tell you
Worth reading before you trust any tool, including this one.
- It is not an axle-load calculation. Tiercube warns when the load’s longitudinal centre of gravity drifts from the middle of the vehicle, but it does not compute steer/drive/trailer axle weights.
- It does not know your carrier’s rules. Double-stack acceptance, pallet exchange and appointment windows are commercial, not geometric.
- It cannot see damage history. A case that survived the rules and still arrived crushed is information the planner needs from you — as a crush limit.
- The plan is a recommendation. Load safety is the loader’s responsibility; that sentence is in our terms, not only in the footer.