Two drivers leave the same warehouse with the same 30 pallets going to the same three customers in Munich, Linz, and Vienna. One spends fifteen minutes at the first stop, the other spends an hour. The cargo is identical. The trailer is identical. The route is identical. The only thing that differs is the sequence in which the pallets were loaded.
Load order is the part of planning that gets the least attention and causes the most operational pain. A perfectly balanced plan can still produce a slow unload, a re-stack on a forklift, or a trailer that gets overloaded on one axle after the first drop. The placement of cargo decides whether the load is legal at departure. The order decides whether the load actually works in the real world between departure and arrival.
This guide is about the order, not the placement. It covers why sequence matters on a single-stop load, the LIFO discipline for multi-drop routes, and how the order number and group system in the 3D Load Planner let you specify the sequence up front instead of hoping the loader figures it out.
Order numbers and groups in the planner
Every time you add cargo to a plan, the planner assigns it an order number and a group. The number is what shows up in the loaded-units panel next to the cargo (1st, 2nd, 3rd, …). The group bundles together cargo of the same type added in one continuous batch: pick "EUR pallet × 20" and you get one group of twenty pallets sharing a single number. Pick another "EUR pallet × 6" right after and they go into a new group with the next number, even though they are the same unit type. The number tells you the order in which the groups were added, and the group is the unit you can move, rotate, or delete as a whole.
You can use this to specify a load sequence intentionally. Add the cargo you want loaded first, before anything else, then the cargo for the next stop, then the next. The order numbers stay attached to the groups, and the loaded-units panel reads top to bottom in load order. This is not the same as a routing engine that decides the sequence for you, and the planner does not yet plan multi-stop unloading automatically. What it does give you is a way to write the sequence down in a place where the driver, the loader, and the customer can all see the same thing.
The order number prints on the PDF load plan next to every cargo group, which is the part that matters once the plan leaves the screen. We will get to the PDF in the next guide.
Why order matters even on a single-stop load
Load order shows up at the dock long before it shows up on the road.
Loading speed. Heavy, awkward, or pallet-jack-unfriendly cargo loaded last sits at the rear, which is where it needs to come off the truck first at the destination. That is fine for an unload, but during the load itself the warehouse forklift has to thread around it to place the rest of the load. Heavy items loaded first against the front wall and lighter or smaller items at the back is faster to load and easier to unload, when the trailer goes to one customer.
Loading from the side vs. the rear. Curtain-sider trailers can be loaded from the side, in which case the order matters less. Rear-loaded trailers (rolltainer doors, swap bodies, walking floors) only accept cargo through the back, and every later pallet has to pass over or around the earlier ones. The plan has to respect the loading method, not just the floor layout.
Securing the load. Heavy items deep inside the trailer are also the hardest to lash properly later, because there is less room to throw a strap. Lashing points are usually accessible during loading and harder to reach once the cargo is in place. A load planned with securing in mind puts the heaviest items where they can be strapped down without acrobatics.
Forward shift under braking. This one is mechanical. Under hard braking, anything not lashed shifts forward. A plan where the heavy items are at the rear and the light items at the front means the heavy items have momentum and the light items in front of them get crushed. A plan where the heavy items are anchored at the front and lighter items are at the rear is more forgiving. The planner cannot enforce this on its own, but the order in which you place the cargo while planning is also the order in which the dock will load it, so the plan and the reality match.
Multi-stop and the LIFO discipline
The reason load order has its own name in the industry is multi-drop routes. The principle: last loaded, first unloaded. If the truck visits customers in order A, B, C, then the cargo for C goes on first, B in the middle, A last. When the truck reaches A, A's pallets are right at the rear door and come off without disturbing anything else. After A is done, the back of the trailer is empty and B is at the door for the next stop.
LIFO is simple to state and harder to execute, for three reasons that all show up regularly.
Mixed pallet sizes. If A's load is two EUR pallets and B's load is twenty IBC containers, LIFO has to be modified, because filling the back of the trailer with two pallets and then trying to fit twenty IBCs in front of them wastes space. In practice, you either split the load across the trailer width (A on one side at the rear, B on the other side filling the full depth) or compromise on order and accept that B's pallets in front of A will need to be temporarily moved at stop A.
Weight balance during partial unloads. A trailer that is well balanced on every axle when fully loaded can be illegally overloaded after the first stop, if all the heavy cargo for the later stops is at the front. After dropping A's light cargo at the rear, the centre of mass shifts further forward, the drive axle reading climbs, and the trailer that was legal an hour ago is now over the limit. The plan has to be checked for legality not only at departure but at every state along the route: fully loaded, after A, after B, then empty. The 3D Load Planner's axle view helps with the snapshots but you have to think about them.
Customer separation. B's cargo must not be physically behind A's cargo at the rear door, and A's cargo must not be tangled into B's. Two pallets for A blocking access to twenty IBCs for B turns a clean drop into a fifteen-minute re-stack on the forklift, which the customer at stop A is not going to enjoy watching. Each customer's load should occupy a contiguous block of trailer space, not be interleaved with the next customer's.
The 3D planner shows you where each group sits in the trailer; the order numbers let you label them in stop-sequence order; the axle view tells you whether the plan is still legal after a drop. Combine the three and you have a multi-stop plan that survives contact with the real world.
A simple multi-stop example
Three drops on the route Berlin → Prague → Vienna → Budapest. The cargo:
- Prague: 8 EUR pallets, 2 t total, lightweight machine parts
- Vienna: 14 EUR pallets, 9 t total, mixed beverages
- Budapest: 11 EUR pallets, 11 t total, heavy steel components
A naive plan loads them in the order the warehouse picks them, then sorts it out at each drop. A LIFO plan loads Budapest first (against the front bulkhead, heaviest cargo deepest into the trailer), Vienna in the middle, Prague at the rear doors.
In the planner this becomes three groups: group 1 (Budapest pallets, the first you add, gets order number 1), group 2 (Vienna), group 3 (Prague). The order numbers in the loaded-units panel run 1 → 2 → 3 top to bottom, which mirrors the load sequence. At every stop, the cargo coming off has the matching order number, so the driver knows which pallets to grab without opening a clipboard.
Three things to check before this plan ships.
Fully loaded axle reading: drive axle ~10 t, trailer tridem ~22 t, all green. Heavy steel near the kingpin balances against the lighter pallets at the rear.
After Prague: 8 light pallets gone from the rear. Remaining 25 pallets, 20 t, sitting closer to the front than before. Drive axle creeps up to ~11 t (just under the 11.5 t limit), tridem drops to ~17 t. Still legal, but tighter than at departure. Worth knowing before you leave the warehouse.
After Vienna: 11 heavy pallets remain, all at the front. Drive axle reading at the limit. This is the leg where an unaware driver might fail a weighbridge. Knowing in advance lets you plan the route to avoid a known weighbridge between Vienna and Budapest, or shift one Vienna pallet to the rear during loading so the trailer is more balanced post-Vienna.
The cargo did not change. The plan made the difference between a clean three-drop route and a fine in the second leg.
When LIFO does not apply
LIFO is the default. It is not the only rule.
Single-drop deliveries do not need LIFO at all. Order matters for loading speed, securing, and braking, not for unloading sequence.
Cross-dock loads going to a single distribution centre where the customer unloads everything anyway are also indifferent to LIFO. Optimise for trailer fill and weight distribution instead.
Temperature-sensitive cargo sometimes overrides LIFO. Frozen at the front, chilled in the middle, ambient at the rear regardless of drop sequence, because the cold air pools near the refrigeration unit. This is a frigo-specific rule that beats the general one.
ADR mixed loads have segregation rules that override LIFO. Class 3 flammable liquids cannot be loaded adjacent to class 5.1 oxidisers, regardless of which customer they are going to.
Customer access matters. A site that can only be reached from the left side (urban delivery, tight courtyard) wants the cargo for that site placed on the left side of the trailer, not just at the rear. Some forklift loading docks require pallets oriented in a specific direction. The plan adapts to the dock, not the other way around.
The point of LIFO is to make unloading fast and safe; when another constraint makes that goal harder to reach with a different sequence, the other constraint wins.
A planning checklist for load order
Before the plan leaves the screen and goes to the dock:
- Drop sequence locked. Decide the route order first, then plan load order from it. Changing the route after loading is what produces re-stacks.
- Heaviest at the front. Where possible, heavy cargo against the bulkhead, lighter cargo at the rear. Both for unloading sequence and for braking safety.
- Contiguous blocks per customer. Each customer's cargo occupies one continuous area of trailer floor, not scattered through the load.
- Axle reading at every drop state. Fully loaded, after drop 1, after drop 2, and so on. Each state under the legal limit.
- Cargo for the first stop is the last loaded. LIFO. Test by asking: at stop A, what is right behind the rear doors?
- Securing accessible. Heavy items at the bulkhead can still be strapped from the side or the floor. If you cannot reach a lashing point during loading, you cannot reach it on the road either.
- Special rules applied. ADR segregation, frigo temperature zones, customer-specific orientation, anything that overrides the default.
- Order numbers communicated. The driver, the loader, and the receiver all see the same order numbers, either on the PDF load plan or on a printed loading sheet.
Summary
Order is the second half of load planning, after placement. A balanced load that arrives in the wrong sequence at a multi-drop route produces re-stacks, weighbridge violations on intermediate legs, and slow unloads that nobody scheduled time for. The order numbers attached to every cargo group in the 3D Load Planner are how the sequence becomes specific instead of vague: you decide it during planning, the same numbers travel with the cargo on the printed load plan, and everyone at the dock loads to the same script. LIFO is the default for multi-drop work, with exceptions for frigo, ADR, and dock access. Treat the order as a planning input, not an afterthought, and the load at every stop along the route stays legal and quick.
Next in this series: the PDF load plan itself — the three pages that go from the planner to the driver, the loader, and the customer, and why one shared document is the simplest way to make sure everyone is loading the same plan.