Executing Transportation

A shipper that doesn’t own a fleet of means of transportation (trucks, boats, and so on) usually has nothing to do with the physical execution of the transportation itself. A freight order for the chosen logistic service provider (LSP) or freight forwarder is created. This party then either performs the transportation or also uses a transportation service provider for it. Depending on the size of the transportation requirements and the possibilities of transportation, most of the planning process itself might be in the hands of an external party.

Integration with transportation usually only happens for a shipper when a truck arrives at the warehouse, either picking up or delivering goods. This of course assumes that the warehouse operations themselves are not outsourced as well. It is important to know from a warehouse management perspective what transportation activities are expected, so that warehouse processes can be aligned with these activities.

When integrating SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) with SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM), a Yard is used in the system to represent the physical location where the means of transportation arrive when they reach the warehouse and from which they depart again. Transportation Units correspond to the actual freight orders.

Advanced Shipping and Receiving is an integrated, end-to-end process that allows users to send, receive, and transport products. It supports mixed and multi-warehouse scenarios within one freight order. It helps you, to coordinate the process steps from arrival of trucks at the gate to the final goods receipt in the warehouse. A truck that has posted arrival at a checkpoint can carry out both loading and unloading activities at a location, or it can deliver goods at several warehouses at the same location.

Advanced Shipping and Receiving simplifies communication between the Transportation Management (TM), Extended Warehouse Management (EWM), Stock Room Management (STRM), Inventory Management and Physical Inventory (MM-IM), and Logistics Execution (LE) application components embedded in SAP S/4HANA. You need Materials Management (MM) and Sales and Distribution (SD) to create transportation requirements.

Communication is simplified by using a harmonized data model, by applying the EDIFACT standard to EDI messages, and by providing dedicated apps and expanding existing apps and RF transactions for shipping and receiving processes. Information moves freely between the components and allows users to gain insights into the status of the products during the process.

The freight order can contain both EWM-managed and IM-managed storage locations - for example, at a production location, and the two storage locations can share a loading point.

In Advanced Shipping and Receiving, you can integrate TM in S/4HANA with the following warehouse management applications located within the same SAP S/4HANA system:

• Lean Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA:

  You can use a very simple warehouse where inventory management takes place solely at storage location level. You need to create a place holder warehouse that ensures the document flow in TM.

• Stock Room Management in SAP S/4HANA:

  You can use Stock Room Management for small warehouse operations and for warehouse operations with low complexity. Stock Room Management contains SAP S/4HANA functionality from the former Warehouse Management in Logistics Execution (LE-WM).

• Extended Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA:

  You can use EWM for a flexible, automated support for processing various goods movements and for managing stocks in your warehouse complex.

The Advanced Shipping and Receiving process is based on the freight order and does not use the EWM transportation unit (TU) or the EWM vehicle.

Both integration processes, integration based on the freight order or integration based on the EWM transportation unit, can run in parallel. For warehouse-driven outbound processes, you start in EWM.