How to allow overhang on a container

Overview

Sometimes, open containers such us a pallet or a flat-bed are not big enough to contain a product in full. Other times, if the pallet would be just a tenth of an inch longer we could put another unit of a product.

Even when the product is just a millimeter or a tenth of an inch larger than the container, for Blackbox and Cube-IQ the product just won't fit.

In this case, instead of just making the container bigger, we can give the container Maximum Overhang values.  An overhang value can be set separately for length and width.  This will indicate to BlackBox and Cube-IQ that a product may be loaded into this container, as long as the product's dimensions don't cause it to extend over the edge of the container by more than the overhang value.

Requirements

• Any version of Blackbox or Cube-IQ
• An open container, allowing the product to be placed outside the base of the container

Procedure

In the following example, the pallet is 48x40 and the product is 24.5x20. The pallet will only allow 3 products per layer.  We would only need 1 inch more in the length direction to accommodate two products on the length.

1. Set the value to overhang, per each of the length and width.  The value will apply for both ends of length and the both ends of width.  If the total overhang is 1 inch in the length direction, the products will overhang on the front edge by 0.5 inch and 0.5 inch on the rear edge.  The total overhang will be 1 inch and the value to set to length overhang is 0.5.  Lets say that we do not allow any overhang in the width direction, so the value will be 0:

   XML
   
   <Container  
   
       MaxLengthOverhang="1"
   
       MaxWidthOverhang="0"
   
   />

   
   Cube-IQ:
   
   
    

2. As the second step, the length dimension of the container must be adjusted by the overhang value. The total value of the overhang must be added to each dimension.  In our example, the length must be adjusted by 1 inch:
   
   
    

Now, our example pallet can fit the 4 units.  With an overhang of 1 inch on the length side, the pallet now fit 2 products of 24.5 inches for a total of 49 inches, with an overhang of 0.5 inches per side.

Assistance

If any further assistance is needed, please contact our Support team.