There's a ton of really cool optimization ideas like this in Industrial Engineering - factory production schedule optimizations, path optimizations, lots of knapsack problems. What a treat that there are people willing to pay for this kind of work.
I'm a truck driver. My analogy, zooming out a bit, is that the entire road system, at least the National Network, is a system of interconnecting and overlapping conveyor belts.
The trailers are trays on the belt.
They used individual crates before!
Not most. But many.
Another fun fact: US/NATO logistics is pallet-based. Russian is largely not.
Unloading shells on a hot day in a "bucket brigade" must be fun.