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← Selected work/Logistics · Container Loading/2024

Italmondo · Supernova Hub

Truck Loading That Saves €1M and 1,000 t of CO₂ a Year

An algorithm built inside Italmondo, with guaranteed-safe loads that no commercial packing tool can match

Every truck that leaves a warehouse is millions of euros sitting on a forklift. Pack it badly and you ship paying cargo back into storage, break axle and weight limits, place dangerous goods where they should not be, and expose the company to fines and accidents that can land on the driver, the dispatcher, and the operator at the same time.

We embedded ourselves with Italmondo and its Supernova Hub innovation arm, working alongside their planners and developers to design, calibrate, and integrate the loading algorithm that now runs daily across their warehouses. The result: more chargeable cargo on every truck and the certainty that no load goes out illegal.

€1M / year
annual savings reported by ITLM
1,000 t CO₂
annual emissions avoided per ITLM
+7.7%
more chargeable cargo than manual loading
0
illegal loads — every plan is provably compliant

The challenge

Italmondo's warehouses used to plan every truck by hand. With dozens of mixed boxes and a list of competing rules (weight limits, axle balance, fragile vs stackable items, dangerous-goods positioning, customer priorities, multi-stop unloading order), even experienced planners either left paying cargo on the dock or quietly broke a safety rule. The cost was twofold: paying freight returning to storage, and the constant exposure to fines, lost loads, and accidents the moment a non-compliant truck hit the road.

Commercial 3D-packing tools made the second problem worse. Their outputs were elegant on screen but could not express most of the operational rules — axle balance, ADR placement, mandatory items, unloading order — so an apparently 'optimized' load could still leave the warehouse illegal.

Our approach

We joined the team. Working side by side with Italmondo's planners and Supernova Hub's developers, we built a constructive optimization algorithm that handles every operational rule the warehouse actually cares about — axle balance, top-load restrictions, dangerous-goods (ADR) positioning, customer priorities, multi-stop unloading order, stability — and treats each of them as a hard constraint. The algorithm doesn't just beat commercial packing tools on chargeable cargo; it guarantees the load is legal before it leaves the dock.

Each run produces several alternative load plans, so planners can pick the one easiest to execute on the floor that morning, not just the highest score. An independent validator checks every candidate against the full rulebook before anything ships, which is what makes 'no illegal load' a property of the system, not a hope.

The hand-off matters as much as the model. We integrated the engine into Italmondo's daily warehouse workflow, trained the planners, and guided their developers through the integration so the algorithm now lives inside the company's own operation rather than as an external service they depend on.

The outcome

On 38 real Italmondo trucks the algorithm packed 7.7% more chargeable cargo than manual planning on average, and 22.4% more on the loads where the manual plan was already weight-feasible. The company estimates the running deployment at roughly €1 million per year in savings and about 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ avoided. The work is published in Omega.

Just as important: the risk of an illegal truck leaving the warehouse is gone. Every plan is checked against axle limits, ADR positioning, weight rules, and unloading order before it ships, removing a category of fines and potential accidents the manual process could never fully rule out.

From the record

What the underlying algorithm gives you versus a leading commercial tool (EasyCargo, left) on the same truck. The commercial output leaves visible empty space on one side and does not balance the load horizontally; our plan (right) packs both sides, respects axle limits, and ships 13.5% more chargeable cargo while obeying rules (ADR positioning, mandatory items, unloading order) the commercial tool cannot even express.
What the underlying algorithm gives you versus a leading commercial tool (EasyCargo, left) on the same truck. The commercial output leaves visible empty space on one side and does not balance the load horizontally; our plan (right) packs both sides, respects axle limits, and ships 13.5% more chargeable cargo while obeying rules (ADR positioning, mandatory items, unloading order) the commercial tool cannot even express.
Why we return several candidate plans instead of one. The frontier between chargeable cargo and driver-side relocations is steep at first (small economic concession, much easier unloading) and then flattens. Planners get to see the trade-off and pick the plan their warehouse can actually execute that morning.
Why we return several candidate plans instead of one. The frontier between chargeable cargo and driver-side relocations is steep at first (small economic concession, much easier unloading) and then flattens. Planners get to see the trade-off and pick the plan their warehouse can actually execute that morning.

In the press

Techniques

  • Constructive optimization with hard operational constraints
  • Joint handling of balance, fragility, ADR, unloading order, priorities, stability
  • Multiple candidate plans with explicit trade-offs
  • Independent validator — every plan provably legal before it ships
  • Embedded delivery: trained planners, guided developers, integrated workflow

Stack

  • Loading optimization engine
  • Independent compliance validator
  • Integrated into Italmondo's daily warehouse workflow

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