Router & Shipping point

 

General Introduction to Chapter:  This chapter discusses the definition of a route and a shipping point and how the shipping point and route are determined on a sales order.

 

Business Scenarios (include this information in the Important Bullet Points if pertaining to a particular slide):

 

Important Bullet Points:

 

3.1.1    Shipping Point

 

            The shipping point represents the highest level in the shipping organizational structure.  A delivery always starts from exactly one shipping point. 

 

It is important to note that a shipping point does not necessarily represent a physical location.  Rather, a shipping point could represent a group of employees who process deliveries.  For example, you could have two shipping points (groups of employees).  One group of people would process expedite deliveries and the other group of people would process normal deliveries.  Another example could have a shipping point as a physical location.  You could have one shipping point for perishable food items (dock #1) and another shipping point for non-perishable food items (dock #2).  Basically, a shipping point is a way of organizing similar types of deliveries.

 

Shipping points can be assigned to more than one plant.  The allowed shipping points for a particular plant must be assigned in the IMG under Enterprise Structure > Maintain Structure>Assignment.  You cannot set up the shipping point determination until this shipping point to plant assignment is complete.

 

3.1.2    Shipping Point Determination

 

            The 3 influencing factors for shipping point determination are: 1) Shipping conditions of the sold-to party, 2) Loading group of the material, 3) Plant (at order line item level).

 

            The loading group is assigned in the material master at the plant level.  Shipping conditions come from the customer master record of the sold-to party.  Shipping conditions can also be configured to default by sales document type.  The specification here would override the shipping conditions designated by the customer.  An example of this would be for a rush order or cash sale document type, where delivery is always immediate.

 

3.1.3      Route

 

The transportation functionality is one of the weaker areas in SAP.  It is also one     of the areas where clients tend to ‘bolt-on’ to a third-party package such as ‘Manugistics’ that has strong transportation planning capabilities.  The purpose of    this chapter is simply to discuss what criteria go into determining the route on a        sales order.  How that route can be used for transportation planning purposes will be discussed later as part of the Shipping lecture.

 

In 4.0, route is defined as a passage from a departure point to your destination.  This route can pass through any number of points.

 

A point is a location at which a leg of the route begins or ends.  It may represent the shipping point or plant from which a truck departs, a city, a customer address, or a load transfer or border crossing point along the way.

 

The passage from one point to another point is a known as a stage. A leg, in 4.0, is now a subset of a stage though it still represents a point to point transit. 

 

When defining routes, you also assign a factory calendar and specify transit and transportation lead (if using them).

 

In 4.0, you can also specify for a route the planned travel times, distance, and service agent/carrier.  Also, the table structure that stores the route information has been modified.  If upgrading to 4.0, a conversion program (XPRA) needs to be run to convert the data to the new table structures.

 

The travel times and distance can either be entered manually for the route, or they can be calculated automatically by the system.  The system calculates them based on the times and distances of the stages that make up the route.  The check may also be used to verify the times/distances entered for the route correspond to the times/distances entered for the stages that make up the route.

 

 

3.1.4      Stages

 

In 4.0, the stage is defined as the passage from a departure point to a destination point.  They are defined for a route.

 

For each stage, the departure and destination points, the service agent, distance, shipping type, duration, and working times are maintained.

 

The carrier and shipping type are defaulted from the route but they can be overwritten in the stage.

 

If a route is created with the same departure and destination points as an existing stage in another route, the stage information (I.e. carrier, duration) can be copied to the stage in the new route.

 

It is possible to maintain stages for multiple routes through the mass maintenance function.  If, for instance, the shipping type for a stage needs to be changed and the stage appears in multiple routes, it is possible to go into Maintain Stages for All Routes and modify the stage for multiple routes.

 

For each transportation connection point, the type of point, rail information (if applicable), scheduling (I.e. length of stay, factory calendar), and location information is stored.

 

3.1.5      Route Determination

 

To define transportation zones, you divide up countries into different zones,        for example, by time zone, state, province, or region.

 

The 4 influencing factors in route determination are:  1) Country/zone of shipping point, 2) shipping conditions of sold-to party, 3) transportation group of the material, 4) country/zone of ship-to party.

 

Route can be redetermined at:  1) Order time if, for example, the ship-to party or shipping point is changed, or  2) Delivery time, so that the weight of the delivery can be considered, and/or to check whether route determined at order time is still acceptable.

 

Notice that route determination does not take into account possible cost advantages of taking one route over another.  There is also no way of choosing or defaulting the appropriate carrier for each leg of the route.  A unique way that one client decided to use the route determination functionality was to default the carrier based on the four fields of country/zone of shipping point, shipping conditions, transportation group, and country/zone of the ship-to party.  For example, for foreign shipments, you could have this represent a freight-forwarder who would then get sent the order and take care of all exporting, issuing, bill of lading, etc.

 

Another client example:  This client decided to make the route determination process much simpler.  They only had one shipping condition and one transportation group.  Hence, the route determination was based only on the departure zone of the shipping point/country and the transportation zone of the ship-to.  They had one shipping point for each plant.  For each customer, they set up a transportation zone with the first 3 numbers of the zip code.  (Each state only has a few different zip codes if you base it only on the first 3 digits.)  The system would propose the proper route; however, they could manually change it if necessary at order time.

 

 

On-Line Demonstration #1:

 

 

Objective:          To demonstrate the creation of a shipping point and configuration of shipping point determination in the IMG, and also to look at the shipping point field for a sales order line item.

 

1.      Create a new shipping point.  In the IMG, Enterprise Structure > >Definition > Logistics Execution > Define, copy, delete, check Shipping Point > Define Shipping Point.  Make sure the shipping point begins with a ‘Z’.

 

2.      Assign the shipping point to plant CSPL.  In the IMG > Enterprise Structure > Assignment > Logistic Execution > Assign Shipping Point to Plant.

 

3.      Show in the IMG where you can configure the possible shipping conditions.  In the IMG, Logistics Execution > Shipping > Basic Shipping Functions > Shipping Point and Goods Receiving Point Determination > Define Shipping Conditions.  Then go under Define Shipping Conditions by Sales Document Type and point out the shipping conditions designated for a rush order (document type SO). 

 

4.      Show in the IMG where you can configure the possible loading groups.  In the IMG, Logistics Execution > Shipping > Basic Shipping Functions > Shipping Point and Goods Receiving Point Determination > Define Loading Groups.

 

5.       Create another session.

 

6.      Display the customer master record for customer #6.   Note the shipping conditions on the Shipping view.  The shipping conditions are 02 = Standard.

 

7.      Display the material master for material ‘xyz’.  Find the loading group on the Sales:  General/Plant Data view.  The loading group = 0002 = Forklift.

 

8.       Toggle back to the IMG.

 

9.      Go under Logistics Execution > Shipping > Basic Shipping Functions > Shipping Point and Goods Receiving Point Determination > Assign Shipping Points.  Find the row that designates the shipping conditions from customer #6 (02), the loading group from material ‘xyz’ (0002), and plant CSPL.  When an order is created for this customer and material, the default shipping point will be MAIN.  Note that there are other shipping points that can be used to override the default.  Add the shipping point you created above to this list of alternates.

 

10.  Toggle back to the other session (the functional side).  Create a sales order for customer #6, material ‘xyz.’  Look at the item shipping tab and point out the shipping point field.  Note the default shipping point is MAIN.  Click on the down arrow to display the alternate shipping point options.  Note that your new shipping point is an option as defined in the configuration table.  Keep the sales order open as you go on to the next demo.

 

 

On-Line Demonstration #2:

 

 

Objective:          To demonstrate where the routes are defined, and configuration of route determination in the IMG, and also to look at the route field for a sales order line item.

Steps:

1.                  Using the IMG, demonstrate where you define the transportation zones.  Sales & Distribution > Basic Functions > Routes > Route Determination > Define Transportation Zones.  

 

2.                  Back out and go into the transaction Define Transportation Groups to show where the possible transportation groups are created.

 

3.                  Review again with the class what the factors are that determine the route.  List the factors and assuming that the customer is again customer #6 and the material is ‘XYZ’, find what the value will be for each factor if a sales order is created for this combination:

 

Country/Zone of the Shipping Point:  Show the transaction , Maintain Country and Transportation Zone for Shipping Point.  Show that this is where the shipping points get assigned to a transportation zone.  Note the transportation zone of shipping point MAIN is Zone 0000000003 of country US.

 

Shipping Conditions for Customer #6 - found in demo #1 as 02 - Standard (from customer master).

 

Transportation Group for material ‘xyz’.  Create another session.  Display the material master for material ‘XYZ’.  On the Sales:  General/Plant Data view for note the transportation group is 0001 - On Palettes.

 

Country/Zone of the Ship-to Party.  From the same session that you just displayed the material in, display the customer master record for customer #6 in sales area ESUS,DR,EL.  Select the Control Data view and the Partner Functions view.  On the bottom of the Control Data view, note the transportation zone is 0000000001 - Eastern.  Go to the Partner Functions view and note that there are two ship-to parties defined - customer #6 and customer #37.  We already looked up the zone for customer #6.  Now go look up the zone of customer #37.  The zone for this customer is 0000000002.

 

4.      Now let’s verify what route should be proposed for our factors that were found above.  Toggle back to configuration and again from that configuration menu Routes > Route Determination. Look for the line with departure zone US 0000000003 and destination zone US  0000000001(assuming ship-to Customer 6), shipping conditions 02, and transportation group 0001.  Based on this, the proposed route is AT0012.  Note that for ship-to #13, the proposed route would be AT0013.  Thus the route will change if the ship-to is changed on the order.

 

5.      Briefly display the details behind one of the routes.  Go back out to the IMG under Sales & Distribution > Basic Functions > Routes>Define Routes. Under Define Routes and Stages, double click on route AT0012

 

6.      Select a route (AT0012) and double click on Route Stages.  Click on the pushbutton “Double column.” (this makes the display easier to read.)  Point out that AT0012 consists of one stage, which is a leg going from Phoenix to Philadelphia.  Scroll right just to give an idea of the data that can be assigned to the stage.

 

7.      Select transportation connection point.  Double click onto TCP 000000001 Philadelphia.  Once again, just give an idea of the details that can be captured related to a TCP.

 

8.      Briefly describe how information for stages in multiple routes can be maintained simultaneously.  In the IMG under Sales & Distribution > Basic Functions > Routes>Maintain Stages for all Routes.   Enter Philadelphia in the destination point.  Execute the list.  Open the folder and point out how the system found the stage Phoenix to Philly in two route AT0012 and AT0013.  Show how you can select one of the routes and click on the pen push-button.  Show how you can quickly edit the attributes for that stage within the selected route.

 

9.      Toggle back to the open sales order from demo #1.  On the item shipping tab screen for the item, show the route field.  Note the route proposed.  Now go to GoTo> Item >Partners and change the ship-to party to either #6 or #13 (the opposite of the one you initially chose).  Go back to the item shipping tab and note that the route was changed.

 

Further information on this topic can be found:  On-Line Documentation.