Platform / Chute Utilization
Stop losing throughput to chute fill drift
Sortwyre tracks fill rate, dwell time, and recirc events per chute — in real time. When a chute approaches capacity or dwell spikes, ops gets an alert before the sort yield drops.
Core metric
Chute fill rate explained
Chute fill rate is the percentage of a chute's usable capacity currently occupied by sorted parcels. A chute at 90%+ fill will produce recirc events — the sorter diverts parcels back to the loop because the chute is full. Recirc events consume sort capacity and delay subsequent chute assignments.
Dwell time and recirc correlation
Dwell time is the duration a parcel sits in a chute before being collected by the pull team. When dwell exceeds the chute's fill cycle time, the chute fills faster than it is pulled — triggering recirc. Sortwyre measures dwell time per chute from scan-in to scan-out of the chute zone.
- Per-chute dwell time in real time (seconds / minutes)
- Recirc event count per chute per 10-minute window
- Correlation between dwell and total recirc rate
- Pull team dispatch alerts tied to dwell thresholds
Alerting
Exception alerting setup
Fill rate threshold alerts
Alert when any chute exceeds 85% fill rate. Configurable per chute group — high-velocity chutes may warrant a lower threshold (75%) to give the pull team more lead time.
Dwell spike alerts
Alert when dwell time exceeds the configured threshold (default: 3 minutes). Includes estimated time-to-full at current fill rate, giving the pull team a countdown to act.
Recirc rate alerts
Alert when aggregate recirc rate exceeds 1.5% of total sort volume. Recirc rate is the leading indicator for overall sort yield degradation — catching it early saves throughput.
Downstream label sort tie-in
No-read events from the scan tunnel are attributed to their originating chute destination. High no-read rates on specific chute routes signal label quality issues before recirc compounds.
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