Understanding Scores
Every load plan in LOP receives five individual quality scores and one overall composite score. These scores give you an objective measure of how good a plan is — not just in terms of space efficiency, but across the full range of factors that matter for safe, practical, and cost-effective freight loading.
Scores are displayed in the Bottom Panel at the bottom of the editor: the large ring shows the Overall Score, and five cards to the right show each individual metric.
The Five Quality Scores
Each score runs from 0 to 100. Higher is better for all five metrics.
Utilization — 35% of Overall Score
What it measures: The percentage of the container's usable internal volume that is occupied by cargo.
A utilization score of 100 means every cubic millimeter of available space is filled. In practice, even excellent plans rarely exceed 90–95% due to irregular item shapes, orientation constraints, and the unavoidable small gaps that form between items. A score of 75–85 is typical for mixed-cargo loads with items of varying sizes.
How to improve it:
- Use Smart Plan or Max Fill instead of Quick Plan
- Check if any items have orientation restrictions that prevent the optimizer from using all six rotations — relaxing unnecessary restrictions often improves packing density significantly
- For items with a large size difference, try splitting oversized items into multiple smaller units if the item can be disassembled or repacked
- Add another container if items are being left unplaced
Utilization carries the highest weight (35%) in the overall score because space efficiency directly maps to cost. Filling a container more fully means fewer containers needed per shipment.
Weight Balance — 20% of Overall Score
What it measures: How close the cargo's center of gravity (CoG) is to the container's geometric center. A score of 100 means the CoG is perfectly centered both laterally (left-right) and longitudinally (front-back).
Weight balance matters for transport safety: a container with a strongly off-center CoG can cause vehicle handling problems in road transport, stability issues on ships, and non-compliance with carrier weight distribution requirements.
LOP's thresholds are:
- Lateral (left-right): within ±5% of container width from center = full score. Beyond ±15%: significant penalty.
- Longitudinal (front-back): within ±10% of container length from center = full score.
- Vertical: CoG below 60% of container height = full score.
How to improve it:
- Distribute heavy items across the full length of the container rather than concentrating them at one end
- Use the CoG overlay (the 2D minimap in the bottom-right of the viewport) to see where the center of gravity falls relative to the container footprint
- If one side consistently loads heavier, rebalance by moving dense items to the opposite side using manual editing
For road transport, poor weight balance can cause axle overloading even when total payload is within limits. If you are planning truck loads, pay particular attention to the longitudinal balance score and the axle load breakdown in the compliance section of the PDF report.
Stability — 20% of Overall Score
What it measures: How well items are physically supported from below. LOP calculates the support ratio for every placed item — the fraction of the item's bottom face that rests on either the container floor or the top face of another item below it.
A support ratio of 1.0 means the item is fully supported. The minimum acceptable threshold is 0.70 (70% of the bottom face supported). Items with a support ratio below 0.70 are flagged with a stability violation.
A Stability score of 100 means every item in the plan meets or exceeds the 70% support threshold by a comfortable margin. Items with very low support ratios drag the score down significantly.
How to improve it:
- Large flat items (pallets, sheet goods) are natural platforms — place them lower and use them as staging layers for smaller items above
- Avoid placing small items over large gaps; use intermediate items as bridges first
- Items with a support ratio warning shown in the 3D viewport can often be fixed by manually nudging them onto a better support surface
Handling Efficiency — 15% of Overall Score
What it measures: The quality of the loading and unloading sequence. Items that should be loaded last (because they are unloaded first at the destination) should be near the door. Items that will be unloaded late should be deeper in the container.
Handling Efficiency also measures how accessible items are — whether they are buried under other items in ways that make selective unloading difficult.
How to improve it:
- Assign loading priority values to items in the item properties. Items with a higher priority (unloaded first) will be placed nearer the door.
- Group items by destination or unloading stop when planning multi-drop shipments
Damage Risk — 10% of Overall Score
What it measures: The risk of cargo damage during transport. This score accounts for:
- Fragile items: whether any other items are placed on top of fragile cargo
- Crush limits: whether the cumulative weight above any item exceeds its defined crush strength (kg/m²)
- Stacking compliance: whether non-stackable items have other items placed on them
- Item contacts: whether fragile items are in contact with hard, heavy items that could cause damage under vibration
A Damage Risk score of 100 means no fragile violations, no crush limit exceedances, and all stacking constraints are fully respected.
How to improve it:
- Mark fragile items as fragile in the item properties — this prevents anything from being placed on top of them
- Set a Max Weight on Top value for crush-sensitive items (e.g., corrugated cartons rated to 200 kg/m²)
- Disable stacking on non-stackable items
Damage Risk carries the lowest weight (10%) in the overall score because hard constraints (fragile stacking, crush limits) are enforced absolutely — the optimizer never violates them. The Damage Risk score primarily reflects borderline cases and soft risk factors.
Overall Score
The Overall Score is a weighted combination of the five individual scores:
| Metric | Weight |
|---|---|
| Utilization | 35% |
| Weight Balance | 20% |
| Stability | 20% |
| Handling Efficiency | 15% |
| Damage Risk | 10% |
Score interpretation:
| Range | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 85–100 | Excellent — an optimized, safe, efficient plan ready to execute |
| 70–84 | Good — suitable for most shipments, minor improvements possible |
| 55–69 | Acceptable — review flagged violations before proceeding |
| Below 55 | Needs attention — investigate specific score breakdowns to identify the cause |
A high Overall Score does not replace review of the individual metrics. A plan with 95% utilization but a Weight Balance score of 30 has a dangerous center-of-gravity position that could cause carrier compliance issues. Always check the breakdown, not just the composite.
Score Display in the Editor
The Bottom Panel shows all six scores at a glance:
- The large ring on the left displays the Overall Score with a color-coded arc (green for 85+, yellow for 70–84, red below 70)
- Each of the five metric cards shows the score number and a progress bar
- Clicking a metric card expands it to show a plain-language explanation and the primary factors driving that score
Scores recalculate automatically every time the optimizer runs and after every manual edit that changes item positions.
Next Steps
- Planning Modes — use Smart Plan or Max Fill for higher scores
- Manual Editing — fine-tune individual placements to improve specific scores
- Constraints & Rules — understand the hard and soft rules behind the scores