Configuring Logistics Integration

Freight units are created from preceding business documents such as sales orders, purchase orders, or stock transport orders. Freight units define the set of materials in a sales order, which can and must be transported together. They are the smallest entity in the transportation process. Therefore, all materials (sales order items) that are merged into one freight unit are transported together from the source of the transport, for example, the shipping point, to its destination, for example, the customer.

Freight units are the basis for the subsequent planning process.

Whether the transportation management process is initiated with the creation of freight units or not depends on the transportation relevance of the sales order (purchase order, stock transport order, delivery). The transportation relevance of a sales order can be defined in a configuration activity. The transportation relevance of a sales order depends on the following criteria:

• Sales organization
• Distribution channel
• Division
• Sales document type
• Shipping condition

The transportation relevance of a purchase order or stock transport order depends on the following criteria:

• Purchasing organization
• Purchasing group
• Order type

The transportation relevance of a delivery document depends on the following criteria:

• Shipping point / receiving point
• Delivery type
• Shipping condition

Based on these criteria, a control key and logistics integration profile gets determined. Five different control keys exist. The control key 0052 defines that a sales order or sales scheduling agreement is transportation relevant and the outbound deliveries that get created based on it. The control key 0055 defines the same for purchase orders and corresponding inbound deliveries. The control key 0058 defines the same for returns purchase orders and corresponding outbound deliveries. whereas the control key 0060 defines the same for stock transport orders and corresponding outbound deliveries. Finally, control key 0053 defines the same for outbound deliveries. The logistics integration profile is responsible for initiating the freight unit building process.

In the logistics integration profile the freight unit building rule, for example, SFUBR1 is assigned. The following logistics integration profiles are predefined for different use cases:

• S001: External planning outbound
• S002: Internal planning outbound
• S003: Internal planning inbound
• S004: External planning inbound
• S005: External planning STO
• S006: Internal planning STO

How freight units are created, for example, if one freight unit is created for the complete sales order, or whether one freight unit is created for each sales order item depends on various hard constraints and the freight unit building rule. Freight unit building rules can be defined in the Manage Freight Unit Building Rules app.

A hard constraint for the creation of separate freight units is the deviation of locations. Since freight units represent the smallest unit in the process, that is transported from the source to the destination of the transport together, two sales order items that have different shipping points, that is, different source locations of the transport, can’t be transported together and therefore must be assigned to different freight units. Deviating dates are another hard constraint. If a customer asks for a delivery date (requested delivery date) of one sales order item next week and another sales order item the week after, the transportation of these two items should not happen together, but rather separately, again requiring the creation of separate freight units for each sales order item.

In addition to hard constraints, the creation of freight units can be enacted using freight unit building rules. A use case for a split quantity in a freight unit building rule is the following: Assume you have received an order for a large quantity, for example, 50 tons, which can’t be transported in one go. The split quantity defines the size of the individual chunks that are being transported to fulfill the order, for example, the truck size.

The whole process of logistics integration is described in the following figure.

To learn more about the freight unit building rules, refer to the following video.

In the area of logistics integration for transportation management, there are seven areas, in which you can define your business process configuration. The most relevant are probably the ones that define transportation relevance for business documents.

• Define transportation-relevance of sales documents.
• Define transportation-relevance of purchasing documents.
• Define transportation-relevance of delivery documents.

Refer to the simulation Business Process Configuration to learn more about the system-related activities using the definition of transportation relevance for sales documents as an example.

In the Define Logistics Integration Profile configuration activity, you can define whether you want to plan based on requested or confirmed quantities, and how freight unit building must be done. How freight units are created is controlled by freight unit building rules, which you define in the Manage Freight Unit Building Rules app. The relevant freight unit building rule to be used is either defined here in the logistics integration profile directly, or retrieved via a condition that is assigned to the logistics integration profile.

Another set of configuration activities deals with texts.

• Assign SD/MM Text Types to TM Text Types for SO/PO

  In this configuration step, you define which types of text entered in a Sales and Distribution (SD) or Materials Management (MM) document are displayed on the Notes tab page of the freight unit in Transportation Management (TM). You do this by mapping text types in SD/MM to the relevant text types in TM.

• Assign Logistics Execution Text Types to TM Text Types for Deliveries

  In this configuration step, you define which types of text entered in a delivery (LE) document are displayed on the Notes tab page of the freight unit in Transportation Management (TM). You do this by mapping text types in LE to the relevant text types in TM.

Finally, the configuration activity Define Blocks Based on Delivery Blocks allows you to define how delivery blocks are handled for specific document types in Transportation Management (TM). You can specify whether a delivery block is translated into a planning block, an execution block, or both. That way, delivery blocks can prevent subsequent planning and execution steps in TM.