Shipping a partially full truck costs nearly as much as shipping a full one, so logistics operations often wait for more shipments to arrive before dispatching a consolidated load. But every hour of waiting delays the shipments that arrived early, trading delivery speed for lower per-unit shipping cost.
The Logistics Optimization Lab models 400 daily shipments to a shared destination region. Increasing the consolidation-wait tolerance combines more shipments per truckload, cutting shipping cost per unit while increasing the average delivery delay.
What makes this a genuinely per-shipment decision, not just a fleet-wide one, is that different customers value speed and cost differently — a shipment with no urgency benefits from a longer consolidation wait, while a time-sensitive shipment might be worth dispatching alone even at a higher per-unit cost.
🧪 Try it yourself: the Logistics Optimization Lab simulation lets you move the consolidation-wait tolerance and watch the daily outcome update live.
🧪 Try it yourself: the Logistics Optimization Lab simulation lets you experiment with everything described above directly in your browser.