Introducing External Transportation Planning

In this lesson, you will explore the Order-Based Transportation Consolidation process. This process supports transportation execution and monitoring in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition in connection with a decentralized transportation management system. The order-based transportation consolidation process comes in three flavours depending on the type of order that initiates the transportation process. In an outbound scenario, the starting point is a sales order (scope item 3EP). In the inbound scenario, the starting point is a purchase order (scope item 5VV) and in the replenishment scenario, the starting point in a stock transport order (scope item 5XC). These processes / scope items are very similar to the respective processes / scope items for manual transportation planning. The key difference in all three processes / scope items is: Transportation planning is done in an external transportation management/planning system and NOT in the transportation cockpit in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.

Within these scope items the planning process is not supported within SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, but within a de-central TM system. For this purpose, freight units are sent to the de-central TM system. There, freight units that can be combined - for example, in a delivery tour - are consolidated into freight orders. Freight orders are created in the external planning process. In addition, the freight orders are scheduled in the de-central TM system, that is the sequence of locations that a resource (for example, a truck or railcar) has to visit to pick up and deliver freight units is determined as well as the dates/times of each visit. The planning result of the de-central TM system, that is the freight order and its assignment of freight units, is then returned to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition to create the freight order also there.

The de-central TM system can be a third-party TM system or an SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition system. In the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, the transportation planner creates a freight order and assigns the freight unit received from the SAP S/HANA Cloud, public edition system. Additionally, he or she assigns a carrier to the freight order to execute the transportation of the goods. As soon as the transportation planner is done with the planning activities, he or she saves the freight order. The freight order is automatically replicated to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition system for further processing. The minimum required process steps in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition system are described with scope item 4OZ.

See the following video to learn more about the order-based transportation consolidation - outbound process.

See the following video to learn more about the order-based transportation consolidation - inbound process.

See the following video to learn more about the stock transport order-based transportation consolidation process.