Quantity & Groups
Two of the most practical item features in LOP are quantity and group assignment. Both are designed to reflect how logistics professionals actually think about cargo — in terms of identical units and related order lines — rather than forcing you to manage each physical box as a separate entity.
Quantity
How Quantity Works
When you set an item's quantity to a number greater than 1, the optimizer treats each unit as an independent physical item with its own placement. Setting quantity to 10 is exactly equivalent to creating 10 separate item definitions with identical properties.
The key distinction is that you manage one item definition, but the optimizer places ten physical copies. Each copy:
- Occupies its own space in the container
- Has its own position and orientation in the 3D viewport
- Is individually listed in the CSV and Excel packing list exports
- Contributes its weight individually to the center of gravity calculation
Why This Matters for Optimization
The optimizer has more flexibility when it can place copies of the same item independently. It is not required to place all copies together — if placing some copies near the door and others at the back gives better overall utilization and balance, the optimizer will do that.
If you need copies to stay together, use the Group feature described below.
Setting Quantity
You can set quantity when creating an item or when editing an existing one. The field accepts positive integers. There is no upper limit, though very large quantities (thousands of identical items) will extend solve time.
If you are importing from Excel or CSV, the quantity column in your spreadsheet is the most efficient way to specify quantities for many items at once. See Importing from Excel or CSV for details.
Changing Quantity After Optimization
If you edit an item's quantity after a plan has already been optimized, the plan will not update automatically. The Items Panel will show the updated quantity, and the newly added (or removed) items will appear in the Unplaced section. Click Optimize in the toolbar to generate a new placement for all items.
Partial Quantities
LOP does not support fractional quantities or partial loads within a single item definition. If you are shipping a partial pallet — for example, 18 boxes instead of the full 20 — create the item definition with quantity 18.
Groups
What a Group Is
A group is a soft constraint that tells the optimizer to keep a set of items physically close to each other within the container. Items are assigned to a group by giving them the same Group ID — a text label you define.
Why Groups Are Useful
Groups are most valuable in two scenarios:
Multi-stop deliveries — When a truck is making deliveries to multiple locations, you want each stop's cargo loaded in the correct sequence. Items for the first stop should be nearest to the door so they are unloaded first. Assign all items for each stop to the same group, and the optimizer will attempt to cluster them accordingly.
Order integrity — When you are loading cargo for multiple customers or orders in the same container, grouped items are easier to identify and unload together. The 3D viewport visually clusters grouped items, making it easy to verify groupings before confirming the plan.
Fragile or special-handling cargo — Grouping fragile items together can make it easier for loading staff to identify the zone of the container that requires careful handling.
Assigning a Group ID
Group ID is a free-text field on the item creation and edit form. Any items sharing the exact same Group ID string will be treated as a group.
Examples of useful Group ID conventions:
- Order numbers:
ORD-20458,ORD-20459 - Delivery stop labels:
Stop 1 – Berlin,Stop 2 – Hamburg - Customer names:
Client A,Client B - Handling categories:
Fragile Zone,Hazmat Zone
Group IDs are case-sensitive. Stop-1 and stop-1 are treated as different groups. Be consistent with capitalization and formatting within your team, especially when importing from spreadsheets where data entry variations are common.
How the Optimizer Handles Groups
Group assignment is a soft constraint. The optimizer will make a strong effort to place grouped items adjacent to or near each other, but it will not sacrifice overall load quality to enforce tight clustering. In a nearly full container, there may not be enough contiguous space to keep all group members together.
In practice, for typical shipment sizes (50–200 items), groups are honored reliably. For very densely packed containers at maximum utilization, some spread may occur.
Groups and Separation Tags interact in an important way. If two items are in the same group but have incompatible separation tags, the separation constraint takes precedence. The optimizer will enforce the required distance between them, which may cause the group to be split. Never assign incompatible hazmat cargo to the same group.
Groups Across Multiple Containers
When a plan uses multiple containers, grouped items will be placed in the same container whenever possible. If all items in the group fit within a single container, they will be assigned together. If the group is too large for one container, the optimizer will split the group across the minimum number of containers.
Viewing Groups in the 3D Viewport
The 3D viewport does not apply per-group colors by default, but you can use the item color property to visually code groups. Assign the same color to all items in a group to make it easy to verify at a glance that the group has been kept together in the loading plan.