How to Calculate Freight Class & What is Freight Class

hello welcome back to another talking Freight brought to you by ceressus the transportation management company today we are remaking one of our most popular talking Freight videos how to calculate Freight class why well just look here on our YouTube channel for it and you'll see that I'm about 35 pounds lighter I've got a haircut and we've invested in some pretty high-quality video equipment determining your shipments Freight class is a vital step to effectively managing LTL Freight as it is a big factor in determining your Freight hard costs but also is a very important factor when it comes to dealing with any possible freight claims additionally the most common problems that we hear in the consultation portion of our sales calls here at ceressus are often related to not understanding what Freight class to choose we often hear things like well I'll just pick class 55 for all my Freight it's just what I've always done well that customer is not understanding it's hurting them in the long run the shipper may save some money on the freight shipment by picking a lower class but then time is wasted when the carrier reclass and the invoice doesn't match the expected costs making a traffic manager seem ineffective a little education especially when it comes to Freight class can really help you save not only money but time resources and most importantly avoid delays in getting Freight inbound or outbound to your customer you can watch this entire video of course but we also want to give you a good take away simply click in the link in the description of this video to download your handy guide that you can keep at your desk to calculate free class properly so let's talk about free class and we'll go over how to calculate free class [Music] first let's get on the same page what is a freight class freight classes are designed to help you get common standardized freight pricing for your shipment when working with different carriers warehouses and brokers freight classes are defined by the national motor freight traffic association or the NM fta and made available through the nm FC or national motor freight classification in the United States each commodity or type of product is assigned an nm FC and corresponding class for less than truckload or LTL Freight shipments the nm FC system is a standardized method designed to give consumers a uniform pricing structure when transporting Freight traditionally there were 18 classes which will cover your shortly but there was a change by the nm FC in 2017 to go towards more density based classification leaving 11 classes that a shift package may fall under with class 60 being the least expensive to class 400 as the most expensive the number assigned to an item is important to freight carriers in determining the tariffs which in turn determine the price charged to the shipper next you'll need to know the factors on how to calculate Freight class before you determine your Freight class for your shipment you must identify certain factors about your specific freight freight class is based on weight length height density ease of handling value and liability from things like theft damage break ability and spoilage the definitions for each are as follows the first factor is weight length and height also known as density and value the density is the space the item occupies in relation to its weight the density is calculated by dividing the weight of the item in pounds by its volume in cubic feet your items volume in cubic is length times width times height / 1728 where all dimensions are measured in inches the density of your item equals weight divided by volume where weight is measured in pounds and volume is measured in cubic feet the second factor is Stowe ability most freight Stowe's well and trucks trains and boats but some articles are regulated by the government or carrier policies some items cannot be loaded together hazardous materials are transported in specific manners excessive weight length or protrusions can make Freight impossible to load with other Freight the absence of load-bearing surfaces makes Freight impossible to stack a quantifiable stow ability classification represents the difficulty in loading and carrying these items the third of four factors is handling most Freight is loaded with mechanical equipment and poses no handling difficulties but some Freight due to weight shape fragility or has hazardous properties require special attention a classification that represents ease or difficulty of loading and carrying the freight is assigned to the items the final factor is liability liability is the probability of freight theft or damage or damage to adjacent Freight perishable cargo or cargo prone to spontaneous combustion or explosion is classified based on liability and assigned a value per pound which is the fraction of the carrier's liability when classification is based on liability density must also be considered now before we show the newer density based 11 Freight class table let's look at the traditional 18 classes which most carriers still accept as the class so what are the 18 different types of freight class as you can see on the screen now the 18 class table was class 50 all the way to class 500 like the density based table the lower the class the cheaper the freight rate now let's pivot how about true density based class the nm FTA on August 5th 2017 changed classification for true density based items absent any unusual or significant handling stow ability or liability characteristics density is of prime importance in the assignments of classes the CCS B has developed density guidelines that are based on the precedent of pertinent administrative as well as classification decisions the density guidelines are used in the assignment of classes where the average density of a particular commodity or group of commodities is representative or reflective of the range of densities exhibited by that commodity or commodity group furthermore the density and class relationships set forth in the guidelines presume that there are no unusual or significant handling stowe ability or liability characteristics which would call for giving those characteristics additional or different way in determining the appropriate class commodities or commodity groups exhibiting a wide density range not accurately reflected by a single overall average density may be assigned density best based clinic classes and therefore you can use the eleven class table this is especially where there are no unusual or significant handling snow ability or liability characteristics and where there is no other feasible means of effectively narrowing the range and where densities are distributed through the range commodities or commodity groups may be assigned classes predicated on a full density scale in this regard full-scale density classifications should generally provide the following standard progression as you see now with the new eleven class table on the stream let's pause to take a look at this table and see how it's different than the 18 class table now let's go over it all and show a practical example to calculate Freight class shippers can use two resources to get a free class number or code for a commodity using the nm FC book or using a program such as class I T or fast class you can also refer to our downloadable resource by clicking on the link as we said early on in the description below of this video you can put in your information and download it and have it at your desk but let's now go over a practical example using the nm FC book we see that the NM FC code for plastic hose or tubing is five one one four zero now that we know the NM FC number to properly Freight class a shipment of one pallet of hosing we need to know the pallet dimension and weight this product ships on a standard pallet that can double be double stacked for shipment the dimensions are 48 inches the length by 40 inches the width by 45 and a half inches the height and the weight including the pallet is 243 point 2 pounds so we use the following calculations with this information remember your formulas length times width times height equals cubic inches in this case of the hosing that's 48 inches times 40 inches times 45 and a half inches equaling 87,000 360 cubic inches the next formula in calculating freight class that's cubic inches divided by 1728 equaling our cubic feet and using the hosing number that's eighty-seven thousand three hundred and sixty divided by that 1728 and that is 50 point six cubic feet and the last formula is getting the PCF divide the weight the packing unit by the volume again using the actual numbers from this hosing example that's two hundred and forty three point two pounds divided by fifty point six cubic feet that gets us four point eight pounds per cubic foot we have gotten the magic number we need a PCF of four point eight therefore using the freak class table our Freight with nm FC number five one one four 0-4 is rated at class 175 since it since this falls under the eleventh tier new table from the nm FC again it is very important as a shipper of freight you understand getting Freight class getting it wrong will cost you if you incorrectly classify your item to be shipped it can be reclassified by the freight carrier disputing this is difficult time consuming and you will be charged the difference usually without a discount that's it for this week's talking Freight thanks for joining us for another episode we'll see you next week hold up before you go make sure you click over here to subscribe to our channel click on this box to watch all the videos in the current parcel talking Freight series and click up here to go to ceressus comm scroll down and in the Box put in your email address and hit subscribe

Channel: Cerasis , now part of GlobalTranz

Views: 6,568

Rating: 4.9436622 out of 5

Keywords: freight, logistics, shipping, less than truckload, LTL, supply chain

Id: qwbTFTOSXlg

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 08 2019