Increase your load fill and reduce costs with this free online resource from ECR UK This guide will help you: Make your deliveries more efficient See best practice examples from Boots, Nestlé, Pepsico and others Find the most appropriate load fill solution for your business Start using this guide now

How much can you increase your load fill?

The food and grocery industry is one of the biggest users of road transportation and as such has a responsibility to manage its impact on the environment. One significant area of opportunity is in increasing load utilisation – "filling the cube".

The most commonly used methods of quantifying how ‘full’ vehicles are tend to be based on the number of pallet (or other shipping unit) footprints that are carried by the vehicle. While this is indeed one method of measuring ‘fill’, there is a risk that once we reach our perceived maximum (e.g. 26 standard UK pallets on a trailer), we consider ourselves ‘full’, pat ourselves on the back and stop there.
 

Will a vehicle ever be truly full?

Did you know that the maximum volume you can get on an ‘off the peg’ type of trailer is over 125 m3? And that the maximum load weight could be up to almost 29 tonnes? Tell me more.

Whether you are a large company making full load deliveries, or a smaller company who wants to make your deliveries more efficient, there are opportunities for all organisations to increase load fill and reduce costs.

This online resource has been created by the ECR UK Filling the Cube Subgroup as a practical support guide to help companies increase their load utilisation.
 

Contents

	1. About this Output   This section outlines why this guide was produced and how it can help your business, as well as who was involved in it's production.   2. Utilisation Challenges   The four main areas you need to consider when looking to maximise your load utilisation - pack, case, shipping unit and vehicle. Plus top tips, constraints and solutions for each   3. Vehicle Specifications   A summary of standard vehicle weight and dimensions.   4. Measurement Tool   This tool will provides a quick and easy way of mapping your utilisation performance against current Department for Transport Food & Drink sector benchmarks.   5. Case Studies   Over 30 cases studies from companies including Pepsico, P&G, Boots and Nestlé that provide a real insight into the load fill solutions chosen by others in the food and grocery industry.   6. Glossary of Terms   Make sense of the plethora of acronyms and terms commonly used within logistics with this handy glossary.