Where the engine comes from
Load plans are safety decisions, so nothing in LoadingMCP is a black box. The optimizer is built on PackingSolver, whose authors took 1st place in the EURO/ROADEF 2022 international optimization challenge on Renault's truck-loading problem, with the method peer-reviewed in the European Journal of Operational Research (2021). We benchmark against the 700 Bischoff-Ratcliff container-loading instances (Omega, 1995; Brunel University London's OR-Library) and publish the numbers, including the set where the primary solver is weakest.
- Sixteen pieces of published science and university-built technology, each tied to a product feature: EURO/ROADEF 2022 1st place (Renault truck loading) + 2018 (first among 64 participants); EJOR 291(3) 2021 + arXiv:2004.02603 methods; PhD-level optimization (Univ. Grenoble Alpes / CNRS G-SCOP).
- Packing science: extreme-point heuristics (Crainic-Perboli-Tadei, INFORMS JOC 2008); first-fit-decreasing analysis from D. S. Johnson's MIT doctoral work (1973); four-block pallet layouts generalized as the G4-structure at TU Dresden (Scheithauer & Terno, JORS 1996); hexagonal close packing proven densest for round cargo (Fejes Toth, 1940); McKee box-compression formula (1963).
- Physics with primary sources: Newtonian beam statics and tipping moment balance (Newton, Trinity College Cambridge, Principia 1687); Coulomb dry friction (Academie Royale des Sciences prize essay, 1781) in the EN 12195-1 sliding checks.
- University-built technology in the stack: every paid solve runs the HiGHS LP solver from the University of Edinburgh (Huangfu & Hall, Math. Programming Computation 2018); plans persist in PostgreSQL, born at UC Berkeley (Stonebraker, 1986).
- Benchmark (July 2026): 86.4% avg fill on BR1, 85.3% on BR5, 82.6% on BR7, about 85% on average, at or above the published academic reference results on BR1/BR5 (Bischoff-Ratcliff instances, Omega 1995, via the OR-Library, created at Imperial College London, maintained at Brunel University London).
- Rules implemented from primary sources: SOLAS VGM, IMDG 7.2.4, CTU Code, EN 12195-1:2010 securing & tipping statics, FHWA Bridge Formula, EU 96/53/EC, China GB 1589-2016.