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Somebody knows how to calculate how many products I can add in one box to shipping?


cesarwj

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Posted

Hi,

 

I´d like to save client money at shipping send him the máximum products in few boxes. If it´s possible just one.

 

Did somebody pass by it or have a idea how to construct this calculator box?

 

Ex: Imagine 3 products:

A- 10,0 x 13,0 x 5,0

B- 25,0 x 15,0 x 30,0

C- 40,0 x 17,0 x 20,0

 

Question: What´s the best box to package this 3 itens without remain space in this box?

 

 

tks

Posted

You'd need to know calculus pretty well. You have 3 variables so algebra will not suffix. You would have a least 27 combinations of boxes a,b and c of assuming that a buyer could only purchase no more than and no less than 3 items. But it could get really complicated if you allow the boxes to be packed in any orientation, then you are looking at many thousands of variations. This of course assumes that your final packing carton would be a custom box.

 

I think it would be a fascinating problem for an advanced engineering course.

Oscommerce site:

 

 

OSC to CSS, http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/7263 -Mail Manager, http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/8120

Posted

Google best packing algorithm and you will find a lot of discussion on this problem, starting with a good summary on Wikipedia. It's not a trivial problem; in fact, it's "NP complete" which is quite hard, but there are good heuristics to do a decent job (beyond just trial and error).

 

A very crude method could start with the smallest shipping container that is at least as large in all dimensions as the largest item to pack (reduce the container size by the minimum amount of padding needed). See what kind of space is left in the container, with the item in several possible orientations up against one corner. Repeat for the remaining items, from largest to smallest. Each time you'll get a free space that's more and more complex in shape. You can trim off any pieces of this free space that fit only the smallest item. Eventually, after many combinations, you'll either find they'll all fit in one shipping container, or you need to move up to a larger container and/or two or more, and repeat the process. Having multiple sizes of shipping containers available complicates the matter -- you might be able to get everything into one box, but the amount of free space (wasted space) may exceed that of using two smaller containers. It's a tradeoff of volume (and shipping cost) of one container versus two or more. Depending on the shipping method, it may be cheaper to go with multiple containers than with one large one with lots of wasted space (don't forget that wasted space must be filled with padding).

 

Hmm. If TaxCloud can make a living telling sellers what tax rate to use for a given location, someone could make a service to tell how to efficiently pack an order, given item dimensions, container selection, shipping method (sensitive to dimensions or weight), item orientation ("this side up"), fragility (requiring extra padding), max weight in container, restrictions on heavy and light/fragile items being mixed (think laundry detergent box on top of the eggs), etc.!

Posted

Kinda of reminds me about engineers in Brazil who were trying to come up with a sensing device they could install in city buses. The buses were unique, they had a number of doors on one side of the bus, riders would line up in turnstiles on the sidewalk, and the bus would pull up with a door lined up toeach turnstile. This allowed everyone to get on and off at once. The problem was that the bus driver had to stop the bus in just the right place or the doors would not line up with the turnstiles.

 

A number of elaborate and expensive devices were proposed, but the bus drivers solved the problem by simply painting a line in the street at each bus stop they could line up with just beneath the drivers window.

 

So in this spirit just get some boxes, figure your average order, and start experimenting.

Oscommerce site:

 

 

OSC to CSS, http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/7263 -Mail Manager, http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/8120

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