I would say what works for me is a multitude of things. I load off a boxline to car setup for what that is worth. If you can get to know your trucks and learn where the bulk is. For me I load downtown trucks in one of the largest cities in NY.
- 80% of my routes are businesses so I have adjusted to learn what stops are typically heavy, and which are inconsistent and I can plan accordingly. I have one truck with a dump stop that typically takes up one whole floor side of a 1000 so I know not to place anything on that side ahead of that stop coming in. Other things which can be helpful are to learn to recognize boxes and which stops they will, or possibly could be going to. For example, my middle car has a dump that gets a lot of schneider electric boxes so when I see them coming down I know to be in position behind that car. Of course always check the address/PAL to be sure.
- Another thing that may help you if your routes have a lot of smalls, use one rev to clear as many for one truck as you can. I have multiple similarly named banks on my cars (dispatch nightmare) so it isn't too uncommon for there to be upwards of 50 envelopes dumped into a cage with boxes. As I see an envelope stuffed cage I get ahead of my pull, grab an appropriate box for the truck I want to dump out, and then sort the envelopes and grab both and load them. Remember that cage number and the next revolution you can grab another truck already stacked up without hesitation.
- One other thing I do that I don't see done often is to build a custom load. There is no reason you can't move stops around and out of sequence. As an example I have hit or miss businesses on my trucks. Meaning one day they will get an envelope and one day they have ten huge boxes. It would be stupid to place them in sequence on the shelf and cram all the other stops on top of them. Find some dead space in the truck, label the address or business name with a crayon, and move them there. Load the rest of the shelf in sequence. I always go over moved stops with my drivers, or if we wrap early I label and leave a DR notice with moved stops.
- Learn the first three to five stops for your cars. Typically the RDR and RDLs, and other dump locations but not always. If a truck gets bombed out with volume or irregs, grab the first few off (unless RDR/RDL) and stack them out. (sometimes you have to, don't worry about it) Load that sucker up with the later bulk and irrregs, then load the removed stops in order from last to first going towards the rear of the package car. If an RD stop is first, do your best not to block it by placing what you can against the other RD stop.
- Lots of envelopes? Get totes, no one wants to sort 200 envelopes off the 1000 section.
- Lots of NDA? Stack it out or place it in the cab. The HIN location will not fit it anyways and you save your driver hassle hunting, load the savers with the ground.
- I personally have one shelf section full of residentials in each car. Play tetris with this section and cram them all in a somewhat sensible order. If you have to place them out of order do so because by the time your driver gets to the residentials he will have the space to sort them out.
- Multi carry. Don't worry that cage is coming back around even after last rev. Grab as many for one truck as you can each rev and load it. Remember the cage number, grab the remainders as you can.
- Four truck pull? Chances are your dispatch team is full of people who have never loaded and that fourth truck is going to be the heaviest split car you've ever seen. Dump what you can into it early into the shift, stack that truck later if you need to. When I have a fourth car I will have overlapping cages in my work area. Pull for that last truck with a decent multi carry, load it up. Then grab the earlier trucks out of the same cage (should be right in front of you at this point), load them, and repeat with the second cage as it passes the middle of your work area.