Transportation Network

A location is a logical or physical place in which resources are managed on a quantity basis. This business object is used as the basis for the transportation processes in which you name a source location, a destination location, and any transshipment locations necessary to complete it.

Different customizing entries and master data elements from SAP S/4HANA are displayed in SAP TM as locations with different location types. SAP S/4HANA plants, customers, vendors, and shipping points are integrated with SAP TM and become the following types of location: Plants-1001 (production plant) or 1002 (distribution center), Business Partners- 1021 (business partners), and Shipping Points-1003 (shipping point). The following location types exist:

If you are using SAP TM in SAP S/4HANA, no integration is required–material master and business partners are already available. Location master data is created on the fly or via a report when needed. In traditional SAP TM 9.6 deployment, the location type is automatically determined based on the object being transferred from SAP S/4HANA. In the SAP S/4HANA system, each inventory-relevant location can be assigned to one or more shipping points. A shipping point is an independent organizational unit at a fixed location that processes and monitors inbound and outbound deliveries. The physical address of a shipping point is represented as a location in the master data.

Transshipment locations are used for unloading goods from one freight order and loading them onto another freight order during the transportation process. This function is necessary when different means of transport or different transportation service providers (carriers) have to be used to execute a transportation process, for example, truck-ocean-truck; truck-rail-truck. Transshipment locations can also be used when consolidating or deconsolidating goods to be transported.

Locations are critical elements of your transportation network, because they identify source and destination points. Based on where these two points are located, SAP TM can use distance and duration to calculate the best means of transporting a product.

Geographical information plays an important role in TM. Almost all business processes relate to it. High-quality geodata improves these processes. The SAP TM Transportation Network is the foundation of a transportation planning process.

To see geographic information related to location master data, log into SAP Fiori, then choose Master Data folder→Define Location.

A location is a specific point on the earth's surface that is defined by the geographical coordinates of longitude, latitude, and altitude. These coordinates are determined from the address data of a location. An address can contain a country, region, postal code, city, district, street, and house number, as well as additional fields. Determining geographical coordinates from address data is called geo-coding. A geographical information system can be used to get precise geographical coordinates.

In SAP TM, the location master data object describes the geographical setup of the transportation network underlying business processes. Location can store an address and the geographical coordinates that define its position. The accuracy of the geo-coordinates depends on the address data provided and which service is used to determine them.

Standard SAP applications automatically determine a geo-coordinate at region level when creating or changing the location address data. This is sufficient for processes not working with static information or depending on distances, times, or map display. Because geo-coordinates are the basis for distance and duration determination and map display, they must be high quality in case those functions are required.

Geo-coordinates are displayed in degrees, minutes, and seconds in the Geographical Data area of the Location user interface and can be overwritten manually by the user. The Precision field indicates the granularity of the geo-coding result.

A geocoder determines the geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude) from a given address. The following two levels of geocoding are possible in SAP TM:

1. Standard (included in the SAP TM software license)
2. Full addresses (depending on capabilities of geocoding software)

The geocoding program supplied by SAP determines the longitude and latitude based on the country and region code. There are several companies who provide geocoding products, including the following: Google, Here, Rand-McNally, PC-Miler, and PTV (Karlsruhe, Germany).

Transportation zones are used to group individual locations. All the properties of the zones are transferred to its locations. Transportation zones are typically used as the origin and destination points for transportation lanes. Transportation zones reduce the effort needed to model the geographic network in planning. Grouping locations into transportation zones reduces the volume of master data in the TM system. Transportation zones can group locations and can include one-time locations. Transportation zones can include zones within their locations and subzones. For example, all locations that are supplied by the same warehouse (individual locations and transportation zones) are grouped into a transportation zone.

If SAP S/4HANA integration through the DRF is used, transportation zones are automatically created from the address of the location. The location is automatically assigned to the transportation zone.

Transportation zones are not physical locations and therefore do not have an address. Transportation zones can also be assigned geographical coordinates. SAP TM offers two options for calculating these coordinates. After defining the locations, regions, or postal codes, the system can calculate the coordinates. This estimates the center point of the zone based on the coordinates of all locations included in the zone. Alternatively, identify the geographical coordinates and manually enter them in SAP TM.

Transportation Zone Types

• Region: In a regional zone, locations are specified by a country or region. For example, the state of Illinois can be defined as its own zone. In the figure, the zone US-Illinois is created and only Illinois is assigned to it.
• Postal Codes: Transportation zones can be defined by the use of postal codes. Companies can use zip/postal codes or zip/postal code ranges to define these geographical areas. Most major U.S. truck-load and less-than-truck-load carriers publish their rate structures and transit time tables based on origin and destination three-digit zip code lanes rather than city or state level lanes. In these documents, carriers use ranges of three-digit zip codes, such as 170-173.
• Direct: In a direct assignment, locations are assigned directly to a zone. For example, a particular customer might be in a zone that has low volumes. By including them in a zone with a larger geography, you might improve the optimization results.
• Mixed: You can use any combination of these types of transportation zones when defining a zone. This is a called a mixed zone.

Transportation Zone Hierarchy

Organizing transportation zones into transportation zone hierarchies allows you to transfer the properties of the higher-level transportation zone to the locations on lower levels of the hierarchy. You cannot assign a transportation zone to itself or to a zone already assigned to the same zone.

Transportation zone hierarchies reduce the amount of master data to be maintained in SAP TM:

• A zone can be assigned to any number of higher-level zones
• Locations can be assigned to any number of zones
• A zone cannot be assigned to a location

Transportation Zone Hierarchy Definition

Transportation zone hierarchies can include locations and transportation zones. To see the zone hierarchy, log into SAP Fiori, then choose Master Data folder→Define Zone Hierarchy.

Transportation lanes represent the relationship between two locations, two transportation zones, or a combination of locations and transportation zones that expresses the direct approachability of the locations, or of all locations, within the transportation zones for a specific means of transport (MTr).

Using transportation zones as the source, destination, or both, considerably reduces the number of transportation lanes to maintain.

A transportation lane points only in one direction. To model the reverse direction, you must create another transportation lane.

Trade Lane

A trade lane can have a mode of transport and means of transport. The trade lane defines a direction for transportation, which is characterized by the orientation, source, and destination. Possible orientations are: Inbound, Outbound, From, To, Within and Along.

A trade lane is an abstract representation of transport classification. A trade lane instance does not represent a connection between any transportation network nodes (zone/location, and so on), it is a context-independent classification of any transportation-related activities.

Trade lanes can build up a hierarchy, that is, more generic trade lanes imply more specific trade lanes (for example: "Within Germany using means of transport Truck" implies "Along from Frankfurt to Hamburg using means of transport Chilled Truck" and "Within Bavaria using means of transport Truck for liquids").

Trade lanes can overlap each other (for example, "From Germany using Airplane" and "Within Europe using Airplane"). Trade lane hierarchies include transportation zone hierarchy (for example: "From Germany" implies "From Bavaria", which implies "From Plant_Munich"), means of transport hierarchy (for example: "Within Germany with Mtr Truck" implies "Within Germany with Mtr Chilled_Truck") and means of transport–mode of transport relations (for example: "Within Germany with Mode of Transport Road" implies "Within Germany with Mtr Chilled_truck").

There is no direct link between trade lane and transportation lane.

When all shipping and receiving locations are defined, frame how you intend to ship products between these locations. The complexity of your shipping scenarios influences how much detail you must maintain.

For example, consider whether products are shipped over road, rail, or waterways.

The first configuration step in the transportation process is to identify the transportation modes that can be used to move products. The transportation mode describes the highest-level transport grouping, for example, road, rail, inland waterway, sea, or air. Each method of transport is assigned a single transportation mode.

SAP transportation mode categories are road, rail, sea, air, postal service, and inland waterways.

In addition to the transportation mode category, companies can assign a dangerous goods transport category. This signals that you may have to ship certain chemicals under pressure and only certain ways of transporting the product are suitable. These categories define the type of transport to be used. Category 99 (all modes) is used in the U.S. according to dangerous goods regulation 49 CFR. Customers can use categories 30–89 for their own definition.

The transportation mode can be set as the Main Carriage. The reference to the main carriage indicates that this segment of transportation is the primary segment. When dealing with export scenarios, you can have the precarriage, main carriage, and on-carriage. In a multimodal or multistage shipment, the main carriage stage contains all of the shipment documents. It also allows pre- and on-carriage stages to be linked to it.

These transportation modes can be used at a high level to determine incompatibilities.

When you define the various transportation modes, your company can further define the transportation process by creating and assigning different means of transport. The means of transport describes the characteristics of specific vehicle types or classifications that transport goods, such as a nonrefrigerated truck, a refrigerated truck, a 60-foot rail boxcar, or a bulk container.

The network can be expanded by defining vehicle resources and assigning them to a means of transport. Vehicle resources in a means of transport have a common set of physical characteristics that are taken into account during the planning process. These physical characteristics include the mode of transportation (air, rail, surface, or sea), vehicle capacity, speed, cost structure, geographic availability, and temperature control. Whether a company-owned fleet can be used to group vehicles in a means of transport is also a consideration.

Means of transport also allow a company to describe the cost structure and geographical availability of a class of vehicle.

There are various means of transport settings:

• Transportation mode

• Multi-resource

• Scheduled means of transport

• Own means of transport

• GIS quality

Multi-Resource

Instead of creating individual resources for a means of transport, you can select the Multi-Resource checkbox for the means of transport. During planning, the system assumes the availability of the number of resources you define. If you do not specify a number in this field, the system assumes that an unlimited number of resources are available. During vehicle scheduling and preprocessing, the number of resources that you define in this field indicates the maximum number of parallel freight orders that the system is allowed to create for each resource.

Duration

Duration is one of the key elements to consider when dealing with different means of transport. This can be influenced by the type of transport as well as the quality or type of transportation infrastructure used. Selecting the GIS Quality checkbox means your organization is integrating with a third party geographical information system. This integration is specific about which routes (interstate highways or county roads) are used. Anticipated speeds for the different types of highways or roads that are used can be defined.

Distance and Speed

If you choose not to integrate with a GIS, you still differentiate durations for different means of transport. Within each means of transport, you can specify an average speed. The speed is then used, along with the distance from the transportation lane, to calculate the transit duration.

The distance factor establishes the difference between the linear distance between the two locations and the actual distance covered by the vehicle. Based on the linear distance, you can use this factor to estimate the actual travel distance for a vehicle between two locations. Together with the average speed, you can estimate the transportation time.

Scenario building can be time-consuming. Scenario validation, especially for transportation optimization, is even more time consuming. The planner must establish if all elements of the transportation network are maintained correctly to enable the optimizer to find a valid solution.

You can use the path finder function to search for legs in your transportation network and take the following considerations into account during the process:

• Locations

• Transshipment locations

• Transportation lanes

• Schedules

• Transportation zones

The path finder enables you to easily determine whether a connection exists between two locations and, therefore, whether you have correctly configured your master data. However, the path finder does not take incompatibilities into consideration.