Racks in a Plan
A rack is a pallet type that carries a 3D body — see Racks and Other Custom Carriers for how to upload one. This page is about using it: getting a rack into a plan, loading it, and what the optimizer does with it once it is loaded.
Racks are loaded by hand, on purpose. Automatic palletization assigns cargo to flat platforms by volume and weight; which shelf of a frame a part belongs on is a decision about access, sequence and shape that you make, not a packing score. So Palletize All skips racks and leaves them to you.
Getting a rack into the plan
- In the Items panel, click the chevron (▾) next to + Add Item and choose Add Rack
- Pick the rack type. The picker lists every pallet type in your library that has a 3D body, with its tare weight
- The rack appears in the Items panel as a row marked unplaced, already carrying its tare weight
- Drag that row into the 3D view. Drop it on the container floor to load it, or on the ground beside the container to stage it there
An empty rack is a real object from the moment you add it — it occupies space and weighs its tare. Add the racks you are shipping first, then fill them.
Loading a rack
Drag a unit from the Items panel — or an already-placed unit in the viewport — onto the rack, and release it where you want it to land. LOP drops it onto the first surface below the release point:
- A part with a 3D shape of its own rests on the rack's real geometry: a tube with a flange rests on the bars by its tube, and the flange hangs in the gap between them where a box would have been refused
- A part without a shape rests on its bounding box, on the tier below the release point
If the drop cannot work, LOP refuses it and says why — the item is larger than the rack, it would sit inside the frame, it would overlap something already there, it would exceed the maximum stack height, or it would hang out past the rack's allowed overhang.
Release the unit at the level you want, not above the rack. The drop lands on the surface under your cursor, so releasing high above the frame aims at the top tier, and releasing below the first shelf aims at the floor.
Edit rack
Open Edit rack from the rack's row for the load seen as a list rather than a picture. It shows what LOP derived from the body, and it is the precise way to place things:
| Tiers | Every resting surface LOP found in the body, plus Floor. A rack with four shelves reads as Floor, Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 |
| Slots | Each tier is divided across the rack's width by the widest unit on it, so you can say tier 2, slot 3 |
| Support | Per slot, measured against the real surface. A slot that cannot hold the unit reads no support here and is refused |
| Turn 180° | Flips one unit end-for-end in place, for door-side access or cable runs |
| Remove from rack | Returns the unit to the Items panel as unplaced |
| Fill tier | Lays one flat layer of a chosen item across a tier, alternating the turn, in a single action |
Units resting on other units are listed under the unit they sit on rather than claiming a slot of their own, so the list reads the way the load stands.
Every figure in this panel — fill, payload, remaining capacity — is about the cargo, not the carrier. The rack's own tare is never in them.
Lock, Unlock and Duplicate
Lock protects a finished rack. A locked rack cannot be deleted by accident, and its load is fixed: you can still move the rack, and the optimizer can still carry it, but nothing goes in or out until you unlock it.
Duplicate copies a loaded rack, contents included, and places the copy beside the source. It checks first that you actually have enough units left for a second rack — if you do not, it tells you which items are short instead of creating a half-loaded copy.
Unlock changes the lock, not the load. Unlocking a rack makes it movable and editable again and changes nothing about what it carries: every unit stays on its tier and in its slot, turned units stay turned, and the rack's weight and balance are unchanged. To change what it carries, use Remove from rack, Fill tier or Unpalletize.
What the optimizer does with a rack
A loaded rack is cargo. The planner will not open it, but it will carry it:
- It places the rack in the container like any other unit, respecting its footprint, its total weight and the space it needs
- It uses the rack's real centre of gravity — computed from what is actually inside it, not from the frame's middle — for the container's balance check, the stability score and the axle-weight check. A rack loaded on one side is treated as the off-centre load it is
- It may turn the rack 180° when doing so improves balance or axle headroom. The load turns with it
- It may stack identical racks, post on post, up to the stack count you typed on the pallet type, heaviest at the bottom
Racks and loose cargo plan together: units you have put on racks are not offered to the packer again, and the remainder is planned normally.
In the exports
Every export carries the rack load, so the person loading the truck can see it:
- PDF — a Racks section listing each rack, where it is, its total weight and its contents by level and slot. Identical racks are never merged into one row: each is listed separately, because each one is a physical thing somebody has to load
- Excel — a Racks sheet, one row per unit, with the rack's identity repeated on every row so you can filter and sort
- CSV — four rack columns after Status: pallet, level, slot, and whether the unit is turned; the final Qty column shows 1 for each rack unit
See PDF Report, Excel Export and CSV Export.
Next Steps
- Racks and Other Custom Carriers — uploading a 3D body
- Shape-True Packing — how real geometry is used instead of bounding boxes
- Managing Pallets — moving, rotating and deleting loaded pallets
- Constraints — balance, stability and axle weight