Load planning software that books fewer trucks for the same freight.
Your trucks get booked on what five people know at five desks, so loads that could share a truck never meet. Orkestra's load building agent plans every load before you book: how the pallets fit, which orders ride together, and how many trucks you actually need. Run a free freight consolidation check on last week's shipments to see what it would have saved.
- Last week's loads, re-planned for free
- Turned, stacked and weight-checked
- Recommends how many trucks to book
- LTLChicago, IL 606076 pallets$573
- LTLElk Grove Village, IL 600078 pallets$706
- LTLNaperville, IL 605405 pallets$537
From the sample week below. Fictional shipments, default rates.
Trusted by
Your trucks last week, re-planned by the agent.
Export last week's shipments from your TMS or ERP as CSV and drop the file in. You'll see how many trucks you booked and how full they were, then the same freight as the load building agent would have planned it: which loads could have shared a truck, how full each one would be, and what it would have saved. No sign-up, and your file never leaves your browser. No file to hand? Run the sample week.
Built for shippers sending 30 or more shipments a week from a plant or DC: manufacturers, distributors and suppliers to retail DCs.
Your loads
One row per shipment: pickup date, destination ZIP or city, pallets, cost. Download the template
Check the columns
The agent guesses which column is which. You confirm.
Your rates and rules
$2.50/mile · $75/stop · 3 drops · 50 mi
Defaults are planning assumptions, not quotes. Set your own.
What you get back
- 01How full your trucks would have beenUtilization as shipped against the same loads planned by Orkestra: loads booked, average fill, and the spread.
- 02Which shipments could have shared a truckSame dock and pickup day, delivery days you choose, drops close together.
- 03What each truck would costYour rate per mile and stop fee, against what you paid for the shipments it replaces.
- 04What it left alone, and whyToo far apart, too big, or cheaper as LTL. Nothing is hidden.
- 05Whether the saving survivesThe same plan at two and four times the stop fee.
No file to hand? Run the sample week: 56 fictional shipments out of a Columbus, Ohio warehouse.
Location data © GeoNames, CC BY 4.0. Truck cost is road miles (straight line × 1.2) at your rate, plus stop fees; never less than the dearest shipment it replaces.
Trucks get booked on what five people know at five desks.
Nobody is slow. The orders that could share a truck reach the dock through different people, at different times, and each one gets its own truck the moment it's released. The plan that would have combined them never existed.
Five desks, one dock
Three customers in one city are three orders, often entered by three people. Each books its own truck the moment the order is released, so nobody sees them side by side.
Booked on a rule of thumb
Most docks book 22 to 26 pallets to a 53' van because that's what fits loaded straight. Turned two across, the same floor takes 30, and stackable freight takes more.
Booked before the plan
The carrier is ordered before anyone works out how the freight loads, so planners add a spare truck to be safe. By the time the dock knows, the trucks are already coming.
Monday · booked at five desks
Illustrative
| Booked | By | To | Pallets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07:52 | Desk A | Detroit area, MI | 9 |
| 08:14 | Desk B | Chicago, IL 60607 | 6 |
| 09:03 | Desk A | Indianapolis, IN | 4 |
| 10:41 | Desk C | Elk Grove Village, IL | 8 |
| 11:20 | Desk B | Pittsburgh, PA | 5 |
| 13:05 | Desk A | Atlanta, GA | 1 |
| 14:37 | Desk C | Naperville, IL | 5 |
Three Chicago-area drops, 19 pallets, one delivery day, booked by three people across six hours. Each booking was reasonable. Together they were a truck.
84%
In a one-month diagnostic of 1,292 truckloads from a building-products plant, 84% of the consolidation saving sat across different orders, customers and towns. Those were merges no planner looking at one order could have made. The plant loaded its trucks well; the gap was visibility, not effort.
Load building and freight optimization, before you book.
The check looks back at a week you already shipped. Connected to your orders, the same agent works forward: it plans every load from release, across every desk, and recommends how many trucks to book before anyone picks up the phone.
- 01
Orders are released
Items, pallet counts, heights, weights and ship-to addresses from your ERP and WMS, from every desk and site.
SAPOracleNetSuiteManhattan - 02
The agent plans every load
How the pallets fit and which orders can ride together, across desks, customers and days.
Load building - 03
It recommends the trucks
How many trucks of which type for each pickup day, the drop order, and the saving against booking order by order.
Truck countSaving - 04
A planner approves and books
One look, one decision, through your TMS or Orkestra's shipment booking. Nothing is booked until a person says so.
EDI 204 tender - 05
The dock loads to the diagram
A top-down plan per truck, and every approved truck checked against the freight invoice.
Loading diagramEDI 210 invoice
Six rules, written so a planner can check every truck.
A plan is only worth something if your dock would load it and your customers would accept it. These are the rules the check on this page runs on, and the same ones the agent uses on live orders.
- 01
Pallets fit the way your dock loads
Rows and lanes, straight or turned, stacking only what can stack, checked against payload, and planned to 90% of what fits so the plan can actually be loaded.
- 02
Same dock, same pickup day
Freight that isn't on the same floor at the same time can't share a trailer.
- 03
Delivery days you decide
By default no order moves a day. Let some customers take it a day or two later and the agent can combine across days: nobody arrives early, and every late delivery is named.
- 04
Every drop near every other drop
Each drop must be within your radius of all the others, not just of the first. A 50-mile group can never stretch to 100.
- 05
Priced honestly
A combined truck costs road miles at your rate plus a fee for every extra stop, and never less than the dearest shipment it replaces.
- 06
Only if it's cheaper
Loads that would cost more combined stay as they are, and the results say so. You also see the plan at two and four times the stop fee.
Estimate what load planning would save on your trucks.
Put in a typical week: how many pallets you ship and how many you put on a truck today. The estimate plans each truck to what the floor and payload allow, keeps a 10% margin, and counts the trucks you'd no longer book.
This counts full-truck savings only. The check above also finds the part-loads that could have shared a truck.
Typical interior dimensions and payload for the truck you pick. The agent uses your real equipment.
Trucks a week
25 → 23
booked today → planned
Pallets per truck
24 → 27
30 fit; planned to 90%
Saving
$3,600/wk
≈ $180,000 a year (50 weeks, indicative)
Floor space is the limit here. The estimate assumes this week's pallets share lanes well enough to fill trucks. Pallets that don't, going to different places or on different days, are what the consolidation check re-plans from your own shipments.
How many pallets fit in a 53-foot trailer?
26 standard 48 × 40 in pallets loaded straight, or 30 turned two across. Double-stacked, that becomes 52 to 60 if the freight can take it and the payload allows.
Pallets per trailer and container, single layer
| Equipment | 48" × 40" (GMA) | 1200 × 800 mm (EUR) | 1200 × 1000 mm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 53' dry van | 30 | 39 | 30 |
| 48' dry van | 28 | 36 | 28 |
| 26' box truck | 14 | 19 | 14 |
| 20' container | 9 | 11 | 9 |
| 40' container | 20 | 23 | 20 |
| 13.6 m EU trailer | 26 | 33 | 26 |
Typical interior sizes, simple row and lane patterns, two inches kept clear at the doors. Interlocking patterns can add a pallet or two in containers; your own trailers and loading rules decide the real number, which is what the agent plans to. The check above plans a 53' van to 27, 90% of the 30 it takes turned.
Everything a planner checks, on every truck, before it's booked.
Standard pallets keep the problem exact, so the agent can plan to the rules your dock actually loads to and the rates you actually pay.
How the pallets fit
Rows and lanes, straight or turned, stacking only what can stack, checked against payload, and planned to 90% so the dock has room to work.
Which orders share a truck
Orders from different desks, customers and days that leave the same dock and deliver close together, combined onto one truck.
How many trucks to book
A recommended truck count and type for every pickup day, with the saving against booking each order on its own.
Drop order and a loading diagram
On a multi-stop truck the first drop loads last. Each truck goes to the dock as a top-down plan, nose to doors.
Your contract rates
Merges are priced on your lanes with your stop fees, and only recommended when they cost less than the loads they replace.
Recommend-only to start
The agent proposes; a planner approves. Nothing is booked until a person says so, and every approved truck is checked against the invoice.
Load planning software compared with the usual ways.
The question isn't whether a tool can draw a load or a 3PL can combine freight. It's whether the plan exists before the trucks are booked.
| Desks + rule of thumb | Load calculator | TMS load builder | 3PL consolidation | Orkestra agent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plans before the truck is booked | Book first, load after | If someone opens it | For orders released to it | After pickup | Every load, from release |
| Sees orders across desks and sites | What one person has open | One load at a time | Orders released to it | Only freight sent to them | Every order |
| Pallet fit, stacking and payload | Guessed | Typed in per load | Often weight only | Their dock's call | Per item, from your data |
| Delivery dates, carriers, handling | Yours, as booked | Not its job | Yours | Their network, a cross-dock touch | Yours; late only if you allow it |
The agent doesn't replace your TMS or your 3PL. It sits on the orders you already have, plans the trucks, and hands them to the booking flow you already run, including Orkestra's shipment booking. For the freight that still moves LTL, the freight audit guide covers the reweigh, reclass and accessorial charges worth checking on every invoice.
Get the load building agent planning your trucks.
You don't need a demo to start. Tell us when you want it live and we'll come back with the plan.
- 01
Tell us your go-live date
Name, email, company and when you want it running. Two minutes.
- 02
We connect your data
Orders from your ERP, pallet data from your WMS, your equipment list and lane rates. We tell you exactly what we need.
- 03
Live on your date
The agent recommends the trucks before they're booked. Your planners approve; we track the saving against the invoice.
Not ready to upload a file? Start here.
Questions we get on every call
Re-plan a month of your loads with the agent.
Bring a shipment export and your equipment list. On a 30-minute call we re-plan a month of real loads with your rates and show you the trucks you would have saved.