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Perseuss Blog

Expert insights on AI cartonization, warehouse efficiency, and fulfillment cost reduction.

 

Why Liquid Fill Lies To You | Smart Cartonization with Perseuss

  • tom01419
  • Oct 3
  • 2 min read

Liquid fill vs Smart Cartonization

Liquid fill cartonization = “Pour your order into a box and hope for the best.”Works great if all your SKUs are water.

Most legacy systems add up total cubic volume, then select the smallest box that can contain that volume. No shape. No orientation. No fragility. No real packer rules. On paper it looks efficient. On the dock it creates headaches.

Perseuss Smart Cartonization = “Actually considers shape, orientation, fragility, stacking rules, and what your packers can physically do.”One fits in spreadsheets. The other fits in trucks.


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What liquid fill ignores


  • Shape and orientation: Cylinders, odd angles, hang tabs, lids, and handles change how items nest.

  • Fragility and don’t stack rules: You cannot treat ceramics like socks.

  • Rotation constraints: Some SKUs cannot tilt beyond a threshold or be placed on a specific face.

  • Packer instructions: If a plan cannot be executed at 2 pm during peak, it is not a plan.

  • Real boxes: Internal dimensions, flutes, cutouts, seams, and tolerances matter.


The cost of pretending everything is water


  • Oversized boxes that burn cash on DIM weight.

  • Excess void fill that wastes material and time.

  • Pack instructions that cannot be followed, which leads to rework and errors.

  • Shipping air which reduces trailer and linehaul utilization.

  • Unhappy customers who open a giant box for a travel-sized item.


What Smart Cartonization gets right


A smart engine treats packing like a spatial problem with business rules. It searches valid orientations, respects fragile items, applies stacking constraints, and picks the right carton or poly at the right time. It also generates instructions humans can follow at speed.


With Perseuss, that means:

  • Higher fill rates without forcing impossible fits.

  • Fewer cartons per order and smarter carton selection.

  • Lower DIM fees and material usage.

  • Executable pack steps your team can repeat during peak.

  • Better trailer utilization and fewer transport cycles.


How to spot liquid fill in your operation

  • Your volume utilization looks great in reports but boxes still ship half empty.

  • Packers default to a bigger carton to “be safe.”

  • DIM fees rise even as you “optimize.”

  • Support tickets spike with damage or missing item complaints.

  • You need tribal knowledge at the pack station to make orders work.


The switch is simpler than you think


You do not need a year-long overhaul. Start where waste is loudest:


  1. Identify top offenders by DIM fees and void fill spend.

  2. Capture rotation and fragility rules for those SKUs.

  3. Pilot Smart Cartonization on that subset.

  4. Push pack instructions to the floor and measure.

  5. Roll out to adjacent product lines as savings land.


The bottom line

Liquid fill is a neat equation. Smart Cartonization is a real solution.If you want boxes that fit trucks, not just spreadsheets, it is time to move on from pouring volume into a carton and hoping for the best


Here’s the real story


Liquid fill is a neat equation. Smart Cartonization is a real solution.If you want boxes that fit trucks, not just spreadsheets, it is time to move on from pouring volume into a carton and hoping for the best.


Want to see your own orders packed with Smart Cartonization?

Send us a sample SKU list and we’ll run a quick pack simulation.Tighter cartons. Less air. Higher margins.

 
 
 

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