Freight class from density: one shipment, every handling unit's own density, and the row of your break table each of them lands in

AThe shipment, at a glance

For this shipment, with no ship date typed, read against this sheet's 8 demonstration rows, which are yours to replace.

The shipment line, as a bill of lading reads it

Nothing is assembled yet: the shipment line prints once every row you have started carries its pieces and its three dimensions and the shipment carries a weight.

The figure this sheet exists for is the row of your own table, with the distance to its edges: a shipment one carton deep into a band is a different thing from one sitting in the middle of it, and nothing that prints a bare class tells you which you have. Print this sheet

Printed from otherworldlabs.com, the density and class sheet.

BThe handling units you are handing the carrier

One row for each group of pieces that share a footprint on the one bill of lading, off the packing list you are already writing. Measure at the widest point, overhang included, and from the floor to the top of the load with the pallet in.

CWhat the shipment weighs

Only hold one weight for the whole shipment? Type it as the shipment total weight and leave the row weights blank - the class is read from that total over the total cube, which is the figure a whole shipment is classed on, and each row's own density stays a dash rather than a guess; if every piece shares one footprint, one row with its piece count covers the whole shipment.

No weight is typed yet, so there is no weight for the lookup to read.

DThe density break table your carrier confirms

This is your table, not this sheet's. Type the floor of each band in pounds per cubic foot and the label that table puts against it, lowest floor first. The eight rows below are a demonstration so the lookup shows a worked result before anything is typed; emptying them changes no computation, because the lookup reads whatever rows are present. The floors must climb, or there is no single row to read.

EThe shipment, a row for each handling unit

The two edge rows are read at the other quantity held still: the pounds at the cube as typed, the cubic feet at the density as printed. They are distances to an edge, never instructions to change a shipment.

FEvery figure, worked

Each row, from the pieces and the dimensions you typed

The shipment, and the row of your table it lands in

GHow the figures are read

A handling unit, and a row

A handling unit is one piece the carrier handles: one pallet, one crate, one loose carton. A row here is a group of handling units that share a footprint, so a row carries a piece count and one set of dimensions. The handling-unit count on the document line is the pieces added up across the rows, not the number of rows.

Cube

Pieces times length times width times height, divided by 1728, which is the cubic inches in a cubic foot. Printed to three decimals.

Density

Weight divided by cube, in pounds per cubic foot, printed to one decimal. A row's own density is also each piece's own density in that row, because the pieces of a row share a footprint and the count divides out.

Which density the lookup uses

The shipment's own density: the whole shipment's weight over the whole shipment's cube. That is the single figure a whole shipment is classed on. Each row's own density is printed beside it so that a light row riding with a heavy one is visible, and the sheet counts how many handling units read a different row of your table than the shipment does.

Which weight the lookup uses

The sum of the row weights when every row you have started carries a weight above zero and its piece count and all three dimensions, and otherwise the shipment total weight as you typed it. A typed total is never split across the rows by cube: that would manufacture a per-row density equal to the shipment's and average away the light skid riding with the heavy one, which is the case this sheet exists to show. Where both are typed and they disagree by more than a tenth of a pound, both are printed, the difference is named, and the sum of the rows is used.

Your break table, and why the floors must climb

Each row of your table is a floor in pounds per cubic foot and the label your carrier's table puts against it. The row read is the last row, in the order you typed them, whose floor is at or below the density. That has one answer only while the floors climb, so a table whose floors do not climb is read as no table at all and the sheet says which row broke the order. A row with no floor or no label is not a row of a table.

The edges, in pounds and in cubic feet

The distance from the shipment to the floor of its own row, and to the floor of the row above it, read off the density as printed to one decimal: the pounds at the cube as typed, and the cubic feet at that same reading of the weight. Where there is no row below, or no row above, the distance is a dash rather than a figure. A distance is never negative and is never advice.

What is incomplete

A row you have started is one carrying your own words, a packaging word, a dimension, a carton count or a weight. The sheet prints no band, no shipment density and no headline figure until every started row carries its pieces and all three dimensions, the shipment carries a weight above zero either as a weight on every row or as one typed total, and the row your table returns carries both a floor and a label. Until then the glance says, above the figures, what it is waiting on.

Cartons inside

A count off your packing list. It goes on the assembled document line and nowhere else: it enters no cube, no density and no lookup.

HThe cases the arithmetic does not settle

Each of these is yours to decide, and none of them is decided here. The options are set out and the sheet prints whichever reading you type.

A shipment weighed only as a whole

Some shippers hold one scale ticket and no per-pallet split. The sheet takes that total, classes the shipment on it, and leaves every row's own density as a dash with its reason, because a total divided back out by cube manufactures a density nobody weighed. Others reweigh pallet by pallet on a floor scale to get the rows. The first is faster and says less; the second is the only way the per-row comparison means anything.

Where the overhang goes

A load that overhangs its pallet can be measured at the pallet or at the widest point of the load. The dimensions on this sheet are whichever you type, and a carrier measuring at the widest point will get a larger cube and a lower density than one measuring at the pallet. Which one your carrier uses is a question for your carrier.

One row or several

A mixed shipment can be typed as one row at an average footprint or as a row per footprint group. One row is quicker and hides the light skid; a row per group is what makes the count of handling units reading a different band mean something. This sheet takes the rows you type and averages nothing it was not given.

Sitting on an edge

A shipment whose density falls exactly on a floor reads the row that floor begins, and the distance to that floor prints as zero where your table has a row below that one, and as a dash where it has none. Whether a shipment that close to an edge is worth remeasuring before the carrier does is a judgement about your freight and your carrier, not about arithmetic.

IWhat this sheet will not do

• It is not a carrier, a broker or a classification authority, and it holds no tariff. It quotes no freight rate, no freight cost, no quote, no discount and no accessorial figure, and there is no such figure anywhere on it or in the two files sold beside it. The one money figure on this page is the price of those two files, in the link below, and it is the price of two files and not a figure about anybody's freight, and nothing here computes it.
• It presents no item number as authoritative and reproduces no classification directory. The break table is yours: typed by you, or the eight demonstration bands labelled as a demonstration until you replace them with the table your carrier confirms.
• It never says a class is correct, accepted, audit-proof or safe from reclassification, and it never says that what it prints satisfies a carrier, a broker, a customs officer or a regulation. A wrong class is reweighed and reclassed at the shipper's cost, and what this sheet is worth is being the record of what was declared, on what table, on what date.
• It gives no advice on packaging, palletising, stacking, hazardous materials, liability or insurance, and it never says a dimension or a weight you typed is right.
• It names no carrier and no broker, carries no logo and no endorsement, and invents no shipper, carrier or consignee.
• It holds one shipment and keeps nothing. Close the page and the figures are gone, nothing you type is stored, here or anywhere else, and no figure on it is read in from anywhere. No dimension, piece count, weight, band floor, band label, packaging word or reference you type leaves your browser. The page does report up to three cookie-free counts of its own use to events.otherworldlabs.com, one as it opens, one as the block that offers the sheet comes into view and one as the buy link is clicked. Each count carries this page's address and an id that lasts the one visit, and the first also carries the host you arrived from where there is one. None of the three carries a dimension, a weight, a floor, a label or a date you typed.