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Cube vs Cases

MikeJ

MikeJ

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Today I was talking to the Northern Hasserot Brandt driver who does my route for NHB.

He said to me "Do you have a big day today?" I replied "No not awful most of my stops are here in Treemont, so I'm okay."

He said "I have a big day, I'm going to be out 14 hours today." I said "I saw inside your truck they look like they have it loaded down. How many cases do you have in there?"
He said "We actually go by cubes not cases, but they had to take one off of me because they were trying to load me down with like 6oo cubes and it woudln't fit in the truck. He said, however they managed to cram 500 cubes in this truck which is a lot for our straight trucks, it's almost to much, but they did it."
I said well Hillcrest foods is good at that throw 700 cases in a 28 foot straight truck.
I said you guys at NHB have a pretty big fleet of straight trucks he said "Yes we do and it's good and works out well, but I mean today is way loaded down and I'm going all over creation."

My question is , what is a cube? Is that the same as a case? I know this sounds like a dumb question.
 
They tell me it's a cubic foot.

The amount of cases matter in terms of finding them, having the customer check them all in, but as for loading the trailer they can only shove so many cubes in it.

We actually have a machine that measures the case dimensions and enters it into the database somewhere. Then the software knows how many cubes are on each order/stop, and if all those stops will actually fit in the trailer.

I have heard of other software that will tell the selector exactly where to put each case to use the maximum amount of cubes on each pallet and make sure it's exactly square, nothing goes over the edges of the pallet.

Frightening stuff.
 
I also think maybe when an outfit is cube vs case the driver is paid by the cube, when I was with Core-mark we were by the cube and paid by the cube, which with the variety of product we carried your cube count was pretty close to case count because the sizes averaged each other out, but I gotta think in food service cube count would be higher than case count with all instiutional sized products.
 
Thats suprising I would of thought it would be the other way, I had the mis-fortune of having a new coffee shop opening thrown on the tail of my trailer one friday and it was 310 case and about 440 cube, but alot of cups, lids, 50lb coffee beans sacks, I was not a happy camper at 12:30 am when I looked at my load list to find that little jewel .
 
TedWard said:
They tell me it's a cubic foot.

The amount of cases matter in terms of finding them, having the customer check them all in, but as for loading the trailer they can only shove so many cubes in it.

We actually have a machine that measures the case dimensions and enters it into the database somewhere. Then the software knows how many cubes are on each order/stop, and if all those stops will actually fit in the trailer.

I have heard of other software that will tell the selector exactly where to put each case to use the maximum amount of cubes on each pallet and make sure it's exactly square, nothing goes over the edges of the pallet.

Frightening stuff.
Click to expand...

Ted we have a machine where I work that builds the actual pallets, it's a real machine our people do not build a single pallet where I work, there is a literal palatalizing machine that builds the pallets. Now and then the people hand stack on top of that machine, but all of our pallets where I work are built by a robot no joke.
 
That's what the guy told me he had 500 cubes loaded onto his straight truck and he thought that was to much. He looked like if I had to guess every bit of 600 cases in there and food cases aren't like beer cases, like pretty much all my cases are the same size more or less, but meats, cheese, produce, sauces buckets of sauces and everything else, you know and there are big cases and small cases.
 
kboomarang said:
Thats suprising I would of thought it would be the other way, I had the mis-fortune of having a new coffee shop opening thrown on the tail of my trailer one friday and it was 310 case and about 440 cube, but alot of cups, lids, 50lb coffee beans sacks, I was not a happy camper at 12:30 am when I looked at my load list to find that little jewel .
Click to expand...
I guess its my stops, I have alot of Subways, in fact 3 out of 5 days I have a bunch. That stuff cubes pretty well.
 
MikeJ said:
Today I was talking to the Northern Hasserot Brandt driver who does my route for NHB.

He said to me "Do you have a big day today?" I replied "No not awful most of my stops are here in Treemont, so I'm okay."

He said "I have a big day, I'm going to be out 14 hours today." I said "I saw inside your truck they look like they have it loaded down. How many cases do you have in there?"
He said "We actually go by cubes not cases, but they had to take one off of me because they were trying to load me down with like 6oo cubes and it woudln't fit in the truck. He said, however they managed to cram 500 cubes in this truck which is a lot for our straight trucks, it's almost to much, but they did it."
I said well Hillcrest foods is good at that throw 700 cases in a 28 foot straight truck.
I said you guys at NHB have a pretty big fleet of straight trucks he said "Yes we do and it's good and works out well, but I mean today is way loaded down and I'm going all over creation."

My question is , what is a cube? Is that the same as a case? I know this sounds like a dumb question.
Click to expand...
It's actually a little more then 500 cubes. Pallet builder(the software used to create the loads for a run) does not take in account the meat pallet. Our pallets max at about 5o cubes per pallet. 500 cubes is 10 pallets on a trailer. That leaves room for the meat pallet(s). Trailer holds 12 pallets, straight trucks holds 10. Yes, he was maxed out but this time of the year it's not unusual. It's also possible that NHB cut a route and added extra stops to a few trucks. As far as case counts, there is nothing anywhere on our paper work that gives a count.

Most of the software that we use was written by the IT team at NHB. We all use the same routing software and pallet building software.

And I'm sure he was loving a 14 hour day on a Friday. Bet he was on OT all day anyway, LOL. That is big bucks.
 
for example, it's gonna take a driver alot longer to deliver 500 cs of toilet tissue then 500 cs of 6-10's. the cube of the tp is much greater, thus, you can only put 2 0r 3 cs on your hand truck
 
That's like where I work mixed wine which we sell a lot of because wine can be sold by the bottle not the case is a pain sometimes I can only get 3-4 boxes of mixed wine on my two wheeler.
 
stonecold said:
for example, it's gonna take a driver alot longer to deliver 500 cs of toilet tissue then 500 cs of 6-10's. the cube of the tp is much greater, thus, you can only put 2 0r 3 cs on your hand truck
Click to expand...

This is true, but, I might fit 4 cases of butt wipe on my dolly and 8 cases of #10s. The cans are a lot heavier, so I'm gonna have to go a lot slower, especially if there are steps, so faster, but not even twice as fast, depending upon the geography.

If I pieced it together right, before the amazing software updates, our house went from having to do 90 cases per hour to 100 cubes per hour, some managerial brainstorm. If you have a lot of small cases or splits, you can make a lot of time doing 90 cases an hour, but you could lose time if you're delivering a load of butt wipe.

At 100 cubes an hour you lose all kinds of time if you have small cases or splits, and the customer insists on checking them in, but we have a few customers that regularly order large boxes, chips, paper products, and the rest of what they have can be stacked cleverly so you can make tons of time on these stops, because you can easily do way over 100 cubes per hour there.

Neither system worked good all the time, that's why I'm stoked about them looking at the computer and determining the stop times by what the drivers are actually doing, if... they keep taking regular samples, as some stops change.

Anyhow I hope if I ever have to deliver 500 #10s I have an electric jack and I'm at a dock. If I ever have to deliver 500 cases of toilet paper, I hope I have a cold and my nose is all stopped up, because I can't imagine the smell of a place that would go through so much.
 
My case load is always higher then the cube. The can fit 18 pallets on my trailer and the use all of it. The only problem is that there is no room for my and the dolly. So the 1st stop is a pain to deal with. But after that its easy.
 
grocerythrower said:
Listen here..LOL, I only have one dock stop its a casino, problem is I still have to break everything down and scan it, its still faster because its a dock, I wish they would make it a pallet scan, then I would be in business!!
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And that casino stop takes half of your trailer, LOL.
 
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