Cartonization

A WMS capability that assigns specific SKUs in an order to a tote or shipping carton, and then suggests the most efficient carton size to use to minimize shipping costs. Cartonization can actually involve sophisticated heuristics, based on item dimensional data, company and/or customer rules about which items can go in each carton (e.g., incompatible products such as fragrances and apparel, or a retailer’s ordering department), and finally minimizing total travel distance within those rules.  Some WMS vendors also offer three-dimensional cartonization, which can provide a visual display of how a complex carton packing scenario can be executed with the smallest possible carton size.