Products ordered online are often shipped in oversized cartons. The size of the overall package is frequently much larger than its contents. For example, a fragrance bottle is shipped in a shoebox-sized package, which has padding to fill the empty space. This is not sustainable. Helping to combat this issue is the CASTN optimization software created by the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML, which puts together the optimum order-to-carton combination for each customer’s order. Clever algorithms calculate the best carton utilization based on the item and order structure.
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