Objectives
The shipping and receiving part of SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) comprises the following areas:
Usage of vehicle and transportation units for managing the transportation to or from your warehouse
Loading and unloading, including docking at or undocking from a door
Yard management
Shipping and receiving can be integrated with transportation planning tools available in SAP ERP or SAP TM.
The yard is an enclosed area outside a warehouse, where vehicles and transportation units are dealt with, waiting to be dealt with, or waiting to be collected by an external carrier. You can use a yard with basic functions to control the arrival, loading or unloading, and leaving of trucks. More advanced functions can be used to control the individual movements of trucks. This is called yard management.
A yard represents a separate storage type in a warehouse. However, you can also configure it with a separate warehouse number, which must then include a storage type that has the role Yard. In both cases, you can use one yard for multiple warehouses. Conversely, you can define a warehouse with multiple yards.
You map the corresponding storage bins as yard bins, which you can group into yard sections, in the same way as for the warehouse. The following structures are possible in a yard:
Parking spaces:
A parking space is a position in the yard where a vehicle or transportation unit (TU) is parked. You can combine multiple parking spaces to form a parking section. You define parking spaces as standard storage bins with standard storage sections and standard storage bin types with the role Yard.
Checkpoints:
A checkpoint is a location where vehicles and TUs enter or exit the yard. This can represent a physical gate at the yard entrance, or a virtual gate from which data is transmitted electronically. You define checkpoints in Customizing. You must then assign each checkpoint to a yard bin. This assignment must be unique, meaning you cannot assign two checkpoints to the same yard bin. You can also assign each checkpoint to a supply chain (SC) unit.
Doors:
A door is a location in the warehouse where the goods arrive at or leave the warehouse. The door is an organizational unit that you assign to the warehouse number. It connects the yard to the warehouse. Vehicles and their TUs drive up to the doors of a warehouse to load or unload goods there. The doors are in close proximity to the relevant staging areas – you make an assignment between staging areas and doors.
You then assign each door to a storage bin that you can use to post goods receipts or goods issues. You create these storage bins in a storage type with the storage type role F.
You can also assign doors to supply chain units to control authorization checks. You also assign doors to yard bins – this is then the connection to the yard.
A simple yard without yard management has no parking spaces and no bins for doors in the yard.
In the yard, you move vehicles or transportation units (TUs).
A vehicle is a specialization of a particular means of transport. A vehicle can comprise one or more transportation units and represents the physical entity of the transport vehicle.
A transportation unit is the smallest unit of a vehicle that can be loaded to transport goods. The TU can be a fixed part of the vehicle. The following figure shows different TUs.
Vehicle 1: Semitrailer truck, which equals one TU
Vehicle 2: Truck with cargo area and trailer, which equals two TUs
Vehicle 3: Train with three wagons, which equals four TUs
It is not mandatory to use vehicles in shipping and receiving, if the features available at the transportation unit level are sufficient for your transportation unit processes.
You can create vehicle and transportation units separately and assign one to the other. You can also combine a means of transport with one or more packaging materials, and create the vehicle automatically through the manual creation of a transportation unit or vice versa.
In shipping and receiving, there are several ways to create transportation units or vehicles, or both, as follows:
They can be created manually through the transactions in EWM.
They can be created automatically through receiving the information as part of the inbound or outbound delivery from ERP.
You can use the Shipping Cockpit for outbound planning for the creation of transportation units and assignment of outbound delivery orders.
SAP Transportation Planning (SAP TM) or Shipment Planning in ERP (LE-TRA) can create transportation units or vehicles, or both, to send the transportation planning information to EWM.
Yard movements enable you to move TUs from one yard bin to another inside a yard. Examples of yard movements are as follows:
The TU arrives at the checkpoint and is moved to a parking space or to a door.
You move a TU from a parking space to a door, or from a door to a parking space.
You move a TU within the yard, from one parking space to another, or from one door to another.
The checkpoint is where you register the vehicles and TUs that enter or exit the yard. You can perform this task by setting the status for the arrival at the checkpoint or departure from the checkpoint. This is a prerequisite for yard movements.
The exact steps you execute at the checkpoint depend on whether you have obtained the vehicle data and transportation unit data in advance through advanced shipping notification, for example, or whether you first have to record this when the vehicle has arrived.
Only with the activation of Yard Management is it possible to move a TU in the yard. Without Yard Management, you just record the arrival and departure of a TU at a checkpoint or a door.
Each time you want to move a TU in the yard, you have to create a warehouse task (WT) manually. To do this, you use a special transaction to create WTs in the yard. You can also create and execute yard movements in a radio frequency (RF) environment.
You assign deliveries to transportation units. This can happen manually during or after the creation of the TU. It can also happen automatically when the TU information is already in the document coming from ERP. In this case, the TU creation and the assignment of the deliveries happens in the background.
While not every customer needs extensive processes in the yard, others require more planning and monitoring features that EWM yard management provides. The SAP Yard Logistics solution provides check-in to check-out support for transportation units and is focused on the functionalities of planning, execution, yard operations, yard monitoring and billing. It is based on the structures used in EWM, so it can be used as part of your EWM warehouse, or standalone, for example in a container terminal.
You can use SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling (DAS) to plan vehicle arrivals in your warehouses efficiently, and to collaborate with the parties involved in an appointment.
Planning for the Warehouse:
Planning of vehicle arrivals at the warehouse, and loading and unloading of the vehicles, is important for managing the efficient running of the warehouse, and for balancing the workload across the working day.
You can use SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling to schedule loading appointments for loading and unloading vehicles and to get an overview of the workload of a loading point for each day.
Planning for the Carrier:
For a carrier, planning is important to reduce the amount of time when the vehicles are not available for use, for example, if they are waiting to be unloaded.
Carriers with access to the system can plan loading appointments for their own vehicles directly in the system, and update details of their loading appointments.
SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling can be deployed standalone or integrated with a local SAP EWM system.
SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling uses its own structure, which is connected with EWM structures for an integrated scenario.
Docking Locations:
A docking location represents a group of loading points, such as a warehouse or distribution center. A docking location represents the geographical location of the loading points, and can be used to define attributes of the loading points that are fixed across the entire location, such as the address.
If you use SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling integrated with SAP EWM, the docking location represents the SAP EWM warehouse in SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling.
Loading Points:
You plan loading appointments for vehicles based on loading points. A loading point represents a set of warehouse docks or doors that are identical from the processing point of view, for example, loading or unloading. You can group the loading points of one geographical location into a docking location.
If you use docking locations, the integration with SAP EWM must be identical for all the loading points belonging to the docking location and the docking location itself. If you do not use docking locations, you can define if the loading point is integrated with SAP EWM for each loading point individually. Although you can work exclusively with loading points, SAP recommends that you create docking locations to group your loading points for your warehouses.
Other data that you maintain at the loading point includes the following:
Time Slots:
You use time slots to plan the times of loading appointments. You define the duration of the time slots in the loading point. Each time slot has the same fixed duration and a capacity, which indicates the maximum number of vehicles that can be loaded or unloaded at the same time in the time slot.
Restricted Planning Period:
During the restricted planning period, appointment planners for carriers must contact the warehouse directly if they want to reschedule or cancel one of their own appointments. During this period, they can still change the details of the appointment, for example, the driver. Up until the restricted planning period begins, appointment planners for carriers can change the details of their own appointments, reschedule their appointments, and cancel their appointments.
Arrival Lead Time:
If you always require a fixed amount of time for each loading appointment prior to the vehicle arriving at the dock to perform checks and paperwork at the checkpoint, you can specify this time in the loading point. The system uses this arrival lead time to calculate the time when the vehicle should arrive at the checkpoint before the start of the appointment.
The system links each docking location and each loading point to a supply chain unit (SCU) with the same name. You can specify an SCU that already exists. If you do not specify an SCU for the docking location, the system automatically creates a new SCU using the name of the docking location or the loading point.
If the system creates a new SCU, it uses the data you enter in the docking location or loading point in SCU-specific fields, such as address data, time zone, or factory calendar, during the SCU creation. The SCU for a docking location has the business attribute docking location (DL), the SCU for a loading point has the business attribute loading point (LP).
If you create a docking location or loading point for an SCU that already exists, the SCU must have the corresponding attribute, if it does not have it yet, the system automatically assigns the business attribute. If DAS is integrated with a warehouse number, the SCU of the warehouse is automatically used and the business attribute DL is additionally assigned to this SCU.
You plan loading appointments for vehicles in collaboration with the carriers, and process the loading appointments in the system. As the loading appointment proceeds, the system records the time of each status change for later analysis.
You can plan loading appointments with different durations for the same loading points.
The system can determine the loading point of a loading appointment automatically, based on properties of the loading appointment and loading points. For example, if you have a loading appointment for a delivery of frozen goods, and a designated loading point for frozen goods, the system can automatically determine that the loading appointment should be planned for the loading point for frozen goods.
The system can also determine the duration of a loading appointment automatically, based on the number of packages in the loading appointment, the duration per package, and the amount of offset time a vehicle needs at the dock for activities such as arriving at the dock. For example, for a specific loading point, you can define that unloading one package takes two minutes, and that you require an offset of 10 minutes for each loading appointment. Using these definitions, the system calculates 30 minutes for a loading appointment with 10 packages to unload.
For a carrier, planning is important to reduce the amount of time when the vehicles are not available for use, for example, while they are waiting to be unloaded.
You can allow appointment planners for carriers to plan appointments directly in the system by creating business partner roles for them. This means that the carriers can accurately plan for their vehicles, which results in more accurate scheduling for the warehouse. The appointment planners for carriers can display their own carrier’s appointments only.
The collaboration with appointment planners for carriers is based on the following:
A user with restricted authorization.
A business partner that represents an appointment planner for a carrier. The user is assigned to this business partner.
An assignment of the appointment planner for a carrier to a specific carrier. With this, you limit the access to appointments of this carrier only.
See the SAP Note, 2065193 - Best practices for installing SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling "Collaboration with Carriers, for the different available UI technology options and their respective prerequisites.
With the Shipping Cockpit, SAP offers a user-centric UI for the shipping office clerk to do the following:
Plan shipping activities
Execute tasks
Monitor outbound operations in the warehouse
Recurring tasks can also be automated and controlled in the shipping cockpit.
You can use the Shipping Cockpit — Planning to plan TUs. When planning transports for a given day, the shipping office clerk searches for unplanned outbound delivery orders (ODOs). The shipping office clerk creates TUs in the system and assigns the unplanned ODOs to these TUs, based on constraints of weight, volume, and time. This planning is based on the header assignments of ODOs to TUs, so it is always for the complete ODO. The planning can also be done automatically with the report /SCWM/R_TUDLV_AUTOPLAN_DLV and used as approximate planning, so the shipping clerk makes adjustments to the proposed plan.
When the shipping office clerk and the carrier have agreed upon the planned arrival of the TU, the shipping office clerk enters this information in the system. Integration with SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling provides more detailed support for time scheduling, but is not mandatory. The shipping office clerk checks which staging area is to be used for staging the goods and assigns a staging area if one is not already assigned. The clerk may decide to plan the door that will be used for loading when the truck arrives, and to trigger the warehouse process with wave creation.
There are different options to create a wave in the shipping cockpit:
A new wave is created for each selected TU for a manually entered template and a wave option. In most cases, a single wave is created, but depending on wave capacities more than one may be created. If you select items in the hierarchy level below the TU, the system attempts to create the wave for all the items that belong to the TU.
For each TU the system determines a template for all outbound delivery order items and creates new waves accordingly. Each wave created only contains items from one TU.
For all TUs the system determines a template for all outbound delivery order items at the same time. Either existing waves are enhanced with new items or new waves are created. The resulting waves do not necessarily only contain items of a single TU.
The assignment of the staging area and the creation of waves can also be done by a scheduled report. The report /SCWM/R_TUDLV_AUTOPLAN_TU is used to create waves automatically for the outbound delivery orders that are assigned to TU activities, and to plan staging area and staging bay assignments for TU activities.
You can use the Shipping Cockpit – Execution for outbound execution using transportation units (TUs). It focuses on the main execution and monitoring tasks that are performed in the shipping office.
The shipping office clerk monitors the warehouse progress of the ODOs assigned to TUs that are due to leave the warehouse today, to recognize potential delays. If a truck arrives, the shipping office clerk, for example, posts arrival at a checkpoint and assigns a door. If yard management is not active, movements, for example those from the checkpoint to the assigned door, can also be registered in the shipping cockpit.
Using side panels in the shipping cockpit enables you to display additional context information on demand. The side panel content can be enhanced and adjusted with minimal effort to suit the user’s needs.
Standard side panel content contains, for example:
Transportation unit (TU) weight and volume capacities (in the planning view only)
Carriers per route (in the planning view only)