Transportation processes are not executed for their own sake, but always refer to an underlying base process. In a sales process the transportation process may be required to transport the sold material from your warehouse to the customer. In a purchasing process the transportation process is required to supply the purchased materials from the site of the vendor to your plant.
Transportation processes in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition consist of three elementary process steps:
- Transportation Planning (External: 6W1; Manual: 6W2))
- Transportation Execution (6W3)
- Freight Settlement (6W4)
Depending on whether the planning step is done externally or within SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, different base processes can initiate the transportation process.
If the transportation process involves external transportation planning with scope item 6W1, the following base processes are supported:
- Sell from Stock (BD9)
- Sales Scheduling Agreements (3NR)
- Direct Procurement with Inbound Delivery (2TX)
- Return to Supplier (BMK)
- Stock Transfer with Delivery (BME)
In this case, the shipping type of the underlying base document (sales order, sales scheduling agreement, purchase order, or stock transfer order) needs to be either road or rail.
The external transportation planning can be done in an 3rd-party transportation management system, or in an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, or on premise system. In the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, or on premise transportation management implementation, you would use scope item 4OZ to represent the planning process.
To allow master data replication for an on premise SAP system to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, you can use the accelerator scope item 1RO (Master Data Integration). This accelerator enables you to set up a master data replication for business partner and product master data from an on premise SAP system (SAP Master Data Governance) to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition utilizing whitelisted APIs.
If the transportation process involves manual transportation planning with scope item 6W2, the following base processes are supported:
- Sell from Stock (BD9)
- Sales Scheduling Agreements (3NR)
- Direct Procurement with Inbound Delivery (2TX)
- Stock Transfer with Delivery (BME)
- Lean Customer Returns (BDD)
- Return to Supplier (BMK)
- Warehouse Outbound Processing (3BS)
- Advanced Intercompany Sales (5D2)
- Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer (5HP)
In this case, the shipping type of the underlying base document (sales order, sales scheduling agreement, purchase order, or stock transfer order) can be chosen amongst road, rail, sea and air.
With this scope item transportation planning is done within SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.
Both scope items related to the planning process (6W1 and 6W2) end with the creation of delivery documents based on the result of transportation planning. With the delivery document the base processes continue.
From a transportation perspective, the delivery document is the starting point of the transportation execution process (scope item 6W3). Underlying processes or base processes for transportation execution are the corresponding transportation planning processes (scope items 6W1 and 6W2) as well as their base processes. The transportation execution process tracks the physical execution of transports and includes check-in and check-out, loading and unloading, as well as departure and arrival events.
Finally, the freight settlement process (scope item 6W4) concludes the transportation process. The freight settlement process requires completion of the transportation execution process. After the charges have been posted to accounting, these can be used in the corresponding base processes again, e.g. to bill customers for freight charges in a Sell from Stock scenario (scope item BD9). From purchasing perspective the freight settlement process is integrated with the following scope items:
- Procurement of Services (22Z)
- Automated Invoice Settlement (2LH)
- Integration of Procurement with External Suppliers (2EJ)
You will find solution process flows, descriptions, relevant accelerators and more for all transportation related scope items in the SAP Signavio Process Navigator: