Minimizing the height of stacked egg cartons: A comparison of solving 3D bin packing problems and packers' experience

Packing a carton into a container for distribution is directly related to a firm's efficient use of space and handling performance. This is because packing patterns are often left up to an operator's own experience. Especially in situations where there is a small order, optimally planned packing patterns are often neglected even when an order for a set of cartons needing to be shipped is already known. Hence, this paper has compared packing patterns from an operator's own experience by using a case study of a transportation company against those obtained from solving a three-dimensional bin packing problem (3D-BPP) on a minimum stack height by using a case of egg cartons which can be freely rotated and placed into the bin at any positions which keep its edges parallel to the bin edges. The results found no scenario in which an operator's experience is superior to those obtained from 3D-BPP.