The following are some of the most common types of shipping containers in use today:
Dry storage containers
Flat rack containers
Open-top containers
Tunnel containers
Open-side containers
Double-door containers
Refrigerated containers
Insulated/ thermal containers
In TM, a resource can be linked to a piece of equipment. Equipment types determine the type of truck or equipment that is requested to show up to carry out the shipping. When your business requires specific types of containers or equipment, you may want to factor this into your business process. With TM, you can define equipment groups and specify different types of shipping containers. In the ocean and road industry, it is the type of container or trailer that may be required based on the weight or dimension of the items being shipped.
You can use equipment groups and types, for example, when creating forwarding orders or forwarding quotation items of the container category. Data relating to the physical properties of the container is then available in the forwarding order and subsequent business documents as information for the planner. In addition, after you have entered the equipment group, the equipment type, and the number of containers in the forwarding order, the system calculates the tare weight and the capacity of the container in TEU based on settings applied in Customizing.
A container unit models the logistical handling of the transportation of one or several containers. Each of these containers can contain several freight units.
If you have not already created the container items in the forwarding order, you can use the container unit as a consolidation document. This means that a freight unit is created based on a product item, for example. You then assign this product freight unit to the container unit. Alternatively, you can assign the freight unit directly to a container that you have created in the freight document.
A container unit must be assigned to a freight document before you can carry out the follow-on processes. You can assign the individual stages for the container unit to one or more freight documents. You cannot subcontract container units. The container unit is used only for logistical purposes and for the assignment of different subcontracting documents. Within the transportation unit type, you configure the most important settings for the container unit.
So far, this lesson has only looked at the transport of goods, not at the transport of (empty) equipment like containers. The transport itself only starts once the container is loaded and ready for the journey. However, the container already had to travel before it was loaded at the shipper’s site. If the shipper does not have their own container, an empty container needs to be hired from either the carrier or the logistics service provider responsible for the entire transport. The container is then picked up from a container yard where the empty containers are stored and transported to the point of loading, in this case the shipper. This process is called empty container provisioning.
Once the full container load (FCL) transport is executed and the container is unloaded at the consignee’s site, the empty container needs to be brought to a container yard again (usually not the container yard it was picked up in). This process is called empty container return. The provisioning and return of the container is usually not considered an essential part of the transportation service of the logistics service provider, however, it needs to be tied in with the transport of the full container in order to provide the container at the right time.
Despite the fact that empty provisioning and empty return can be ordered on the same forwarding order, the source and destination location of the forwarding order are the loading and unloading points of the container. The container yards included in the transportation process are not maintained on the Locations and Dates/Times tab. However, the provisioning or return of empties can be defined in the item hierarchy. To do this, a container item needs to be maintained in the item hierarchy. For the container item, the options Empty Provisioning and Empty Return can be set. In the details of the container item, two new tabs appear that represent empty provisioning and empty return. In empty provisioning, the delivery location of the empty container is already selected, as well as the delivery date. However, you can change the delivery date to an earlier date than the pickup date of the loaded container to allow the shipper time to load the container. You can also change the delivery location of the container if the shipper wants to receive the empty container at a different location to where the loaded container is picked up. The same applies to the empty return of a container where the pickup date and the pickup location are prefilled from the Locations and Dates/Times tab, but can be changed if necessary.
Once the pick-up location for the empty container provisioning and the destination location for the empty container return are defined, they also appear on the Actual Route tab as an individual stage. However, since the empty provisioning and return is not an essential part of the transport of the goods, it is not part of the complete carriage in either the actual or the ordered route. The dates and locations for empty provisioning and return can also be defined and amended in the Actual Route tab directly without having to use the item details of the container item. When triggering freight unit building from a forwarding order including empty provisioning and return, freight unit building is triggered separately for the cargo movement (movement of the loaded container) and for the empty provisioning and return leg (movement of the empty container). If both empty provisioning and return is used in the forwarding order, separate freight units and transportation units are created. As freight unit building is triggered separately, it can be configured whether the cargo movement should be represented by a container unit or a freight unit or should be differentiated from the empty provisioning and return container units by document type. This can be accomplished by using a condition in the freight unit building rule that determines the TOR type based on the item category and movement category. The empty provisioning is shown on the movement category of the transportation unit.
The container unit created for empty provisioning and return only contains the container item on the Cargo tab, while the container unit created for the cargo movement contains the full item hierarchy of the associated forwarding order. In some cases, a customer can request the logistic service provider to provide or return more empty containers than only the ones that contained cargo. While the request for empty provisioning and return is only concerned with the containers that also carry cargo, additional empty containers that are not carrying cargo can also be ordered with the same forwarding order. Instead of using the identifier X for empty provisioning or empty return, the identifier P(Provisioning Only) can be set for empty provisioning. Likewise R(Return Only) can be defined for empty return. As opposed to the request for empty provisioning of a container that is going to carry cargo, the container items for which Provisioning Only is defined may not contain any cargo item such as a package or a product. The same applies to having defined Return Only for empty return. The container items for Provisioning Only and Return Only can coexist with container items carrying cargo on the same forwarding order. However, it is only possible to define either Provisioning Only or Return Only for a container item. When defining Provisioning Only or Return Only for container items, the number of containers to be provided or returned can be defined in the item details on the corresponding tabs. If empty provisioning and return is requested for cargo-carrying containers, the number of containers is taken over from the item table and cannot be changed in the item details. Freight unit building creates separate container units for the containers where Provisioning Only was defined.
By using the condition to determine TOR types in the freight unit building rule, it is possible to differentiate empty container units for provisioning only and empty provisioning for cargo-carrying containers. The ordering party may ask the logistic service provider to organize the hire of a container but pick up the container at the container yard themselves. If so, the container item in the forwarding order can carry the information that the pickup or return of the empty container is organized by the ordering party. In this case the corresponding stage for the empty provisioning and return is set to Not Relevant for Planning. The container unit created for the empty provisioning and return is automatically blocked for planning (Block reason: Not Ready for Planning). The same functionality is also available for railcars. Note that the freight unit building rule in this case should be adjusted to create railcar units.
Provisioning and Return of Empties with Reference to a Goods Transportation
The complete process looks in TM like this:
- Create a forwarding order with the corresponding container items or railcar items for the transportation of goods.
- In the Empty Provisioning field, select the option Requested (X) for your cargo item. This indicates that your ordering party requests the provisioning of the same number of empties as the defined item quantity.
- If your ordering party also requests the return of the provided empties, select Requested (X) in the Empty Return field. Otherwise, select the default value Not Requested (empty).
- The system displays information about the provisioning and return of empties in the item details on the Details of Empty Provisioning and Details of Empty Return tabs.
If your ordering party wants to organize the pick-up and delivery of empties themselves, you can also specify this in the forwarding order. This means that as the logistics service provider you are only responsible for providing the empties. You are not responsible for their pick-up or delivery. In this case, select the Organized by Ordering Party checkbox in the detailed data about the provisioning or return of empties. The system marks the corresponding stages of the pick-up and delivery route for empties as not relevant for planning (planning block).
- The system creates separate freight units and transportation units (such as container units and railcar units) for the transportation of goods and the provisioning or return of empties.
If your ordering party wants to organize the pick-up and delivery of empties themselves and this is indicated in the detailed data about the provisioning or return of empties no freight units will be created for these stages.