Integrating Transportation and Warehouse Management

Transportation and warehousing processes are typically closely connected. While transportation management covers the physical transportation process between two locations, warehousing covers the physical processes within one location / warehouse. The link between these two areas is the warehouse outbound processes that connects to the loading of the truck or the warehouse inbound process that connects to the unloading of the truck.

Also system-wise these two processes are connected to each other. Let's revisit the manual transportation planning outbound process (scope item 4MO) to illustrate this connection. In the basic form of this process, no warehouse management integration was taking place, but it was the Shipping Specialist who took over responsibility for the delivery and executes the picking process and posts goods issue.

If the delivery however is warehouse management relevant, the warehouse outbound process (scope item 3BS) will be triggered. That means, that after delivery creation has been started by the Dispatcher, not only the delivery is created, but also an outbound delivery order in warehouse management. In the warehouse outbound process, products are picked, packed, and sent from your warehouse. The warehouse outbound process supports sending ordered products to external customers, return products to suppliers, and supply products to internal customers.

See the following video to learn more about the warehouse outbound process.

In an integrated process between transportation management and warehouse management, the warehouse tasks are created technically based on the outbound delivery. However, the outbound delivery for which the warehouse tasks need to be created can be either selected via the delivery number (like in processes that do not involve transportation management) or based on the freight order number. The freight order number links the transportation process (e.g., subcontracting the carrier) to the physical loading process, when the truck arrives at the warehouse. Upon completion of the physical warehouse tasks (picking, packing) by the warehouse operative, the deliveries need to be set to Ready for Shipping to proceed with the transportation activities.

The shipping readiness status is defined on the outbound delivery order header. It indicates whether an outbound delivery order is ready for shipping. A prerequisite for being ready for shipping is, that the delivery quantity has been picked, and there are no more changes regarding delivery quantity or handling units (HUs). When the shipping readiness status is set to ready, information about the delivery is immediately sent to transportation management and delivery management application components. When a delivery is ready to ship, you manually select the Set to Ready for Shipping method in the warehouse monitor. If you want to set the shipping readiness status back to not ready, for example, to correct the delivery, you can select Reverse Ready for Shipping there, too. A delivery must have the shipping readiness status ready before goods issue can be posted. You can't reverse shipping readiness if the outbound delivery order has already been posted goods issue. If you reverse goods issue, the shipping readiness status is automatically reset to not ready.

Note, that the warehouse and transportation process physically run in parallel to some extent. The picking, moving and packing can happen in the warehouse before, in parallel, or after the truck arrives and checks-in at the warehouse. The physical link between both processes is the loading (or unloading) of the truck as shown in the figure Warehouse and Transportation Process Link.

In the several simulations you will learn how an end-to-end process involving transportation management and warehouse management looks like. The process is split into 4 parts, showing the transportation process including planning of freight orders up to delivery creation. The outbound delivery is then processed in warehouse management. Once goods issue has been posted, the process continues in transportation management.

Note

When using this book of simulations, please be advised about the following: The individual simulations will open in the same browser window. Therefore, do not close the browser window, but leave the simulation always using the exit button(s) available in the user interface.

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