A return or repositioning load a carrier picks up after completing a primary delivery - reducing empty miles and often available to shippers at discounted rates.

The process of choosing which carrier or broker will haul a specific shipment, based on factors like rate, transit time, service quality, and equipment availability.

A multi-leg carrier routing strategy where a truck moves sequentially between two or more loads without returning empty to its origin - reducing deadhead miles and lowering per-load costs.

The percentage of a trailer's total cubic capacity that is occupied by freight - a key efficiency metric indicating how well available space is being used on each shipment.

A freight pickup or delivery method where the carrier drops a preloaded or empty trailer at the facility and hooks to a different one - eliminating driver wait time during loading or unloading.

The coordination of carrier pickup and delivery assignments, including communicating load details, scheduling, and managing day-of execution to ensure freight moves as planned.

A carrier's formal response to a shipper's load offer - accepting the shipment at the quoted terms or rejecting it, which triggers the next carrier in the routing guide sequence.

A centralized database of every SKU a company ships, containing dimensions, weights, packaging details, handling requirements, and classification data used across the supply chain.

A freight handling method where the driver waits at the dock while the trailer is loaded or unloaded - requiring dock scheduling precision to minimize driver wait time and detention charges.

The tactical act of assembling individual orders into shipments by determining pallet counts, weights, and equipment needs - the hands-on execution step within load planning.

The process of determining how to best combine orders, select equipment, and configure freight to maximize trailer capacity while minimizing cost and meeting delivery requirements.

The process of offering a shipment to a carrier for acceptance, including transmitting load details, rates, and pickup/delivery requirements for the carrier to accept or reject.

A logistics strategy where shipments from multiple origins are combined at an intermediate point into a single delivery to the end customer - reducing last-mile deliveries and handling.

The process of choosing the best transportation mode - FTL, LTL, intermodal, air, ocean, or parcel - for a given shipment based on cost, speed, volume, and service requirements.

Combining multiple smaller orders headed to the same region or destination into fewer, fuller shipments to reduce transportation costs and truck counts.

Determining the most efficient way to arrange products on pallets - maximizing case counts per pallet while respecting weight limits, stackability, and product handling requirements.

A consolidation strategy where LTL shipments to a region are combined into a full truckload to a central pool point, then broken down and delivered locally - reducing long-haul LTL costs.

The ranked hierarchy of carriers assigned to a lane in a routing guide - the primary carrier gets first right of refusal on every load, with backup carriers activated if the primary rejects the tender.

The complete end-to-end journey of a freight shipment - from order release through load planning, carrier tendering, transit, delivery, document collection, and carrier payment.

A product attribute indicating whether freight can safely bear additional weight on top of it during transport - a key factor in pallet configuration and trailer utilization.

An automated sequential tendering process where a load is offered to carriers in routing guide order - if the first carrier rejects, it automatically moves to the next until a carrier accepts or the list is exhausted.