A great deal of container loading is done the same way it was thirty years ago: an experienced planner, a tape measure, and a feel for what fits. It usually works. The problem is the times it doesn’t — a load that’s legal at the port and illegal on the road at the other end, a centre of gravity nobody checked, a dangerous-goods segregation that a feel for it cannot see.
The rules are not optional, so put them in the plan
Cargo ships under real rules: the CTU Code for packing practice, IMDG for dangerous-goods segregation, EN 12195 for lashing, and axle and floor-strength limits for the box and the truck under it. These are not nice-to-haves a planner consults afterward; they decide whether the load can legally and safely move.
LoadingMCP checks them as the plan is built, not after:
- IMDG segregation between incompatible goods, flagged before they’re placed together.
- Axle and floor-strength limits respected as items go in.
- Centre of gravity reported — where the weight sits, what the axles carry, whether it’s road-legal at destination.
A plan that explains itself
A black box that says “it fits” is not worth much on the dock. A useful plan tells your loaders why a piece went where it did, wall by wall, in an order they can follow — and exports in a form your warehouse and your carrier both read, so the plan that leaves the screen is the plan that gets loaded.
By eye, or as a tool call
You can plan in a visual cockpit, or call plan_load from your own system and get the same answer. Either way, the compliance is in the plan, the centre of gravity is checked, and nobody finds out at the weighbridge.
That is the difference between planning a load and hoping one.
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