Sap TM2
Sap TM2
Sap TM2
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PARTICIPANT HANDBOOK
INSTRUCTOR-LED TRAINING
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Course Version: 17
Course Duration: 5 Day(s)
Material Number: 50157548
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Demonstration
Procedure
Warning or Caution
Hint
Facilitated Discussion
TARGET AUDIENCE
This course is intended for the following audiences:
● Systems Architect
● Application Consultant
● Industry / Business Analyst Consultant
● Super / Key / Power User
● Business Analyst
● Solution Architect
● User
Lesson 1
SAP TM Overview and Evolution 3
Lesson 2
Deployment Options and Migration Paths 9
Lesson 3
End-to-End Transportation Process 13
UNIT OBJECTIVES
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand the SAP TM evolution and timeline
● Describe the differences between basic shipping and advanced Transportation
Management
A typical transportation process starts with order management. Order management is the
process of creating a transportation requirement. Transportation requirements can be sales
orders, purchase orders, deliveries, and so on. In a second step, these transportation
requirements are planned. SAP TM offers manual planning functions, optimizer planning, and
semi-automated processes (transportation proposal creation). Different aspects of planning
supported by SAP TM are means-of-transport selection (for example, rail versus road),
carrier selection based on real carrier rates, load optimization (3D-planning of container/
truck utilization). Once the planning process is finished, SAP TM also supports the execution
of transports. Execution includes delivery creation, document creation (print or electronic,
like waybills), event management integration (track and trace), as well as warehouse
integration (EWM integration). If you do not operate your own fleet, you need to make sure
that the external carrier is paid for their services. SAP TM allows you to maintain freight
agreements, calculation sheets, and rate tables to accurately define real carrier costs, which
can be used for charge calculation (already in the planning phase, carrier selection), but also
for settlement processes after the transport has been executed. Analytic and reporting
functionalities complete the available functions of SAP TM.
Advanced TM addresses not only the shipping industries, but also freight forwarders. It allows
early planning based on orders (sales orders, purchase orders, MM scheduling agreements)
in addition to planning based on deliveries (outbound and inbound), which is the only option in
basic shipping. Combined planning of inbound and outbound deliveries within one freight
order is allowed in the advanced transportation option. Sophisticated planning and
optimization options in the domain of vehicle scheduling and routing, carrier selection, load
consolidation and load planning are key differentiators between advanced transportation and
basic shipping.
Furthermore, SAP note 2868497 provides a detailed overview and comparison between LE-
TRA, basic shipping TM and advanced transportation management scope.
● 2849584 - SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation
Management – Combination of Inbound and Outbound Transportation (Integrated
Transportation Management) 1809
● 2970146 - SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management
– Inbound Transportation (Basic Scenario) 1909
● 2969153 - SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management
– Outbound Transportation Scenario 1909
● 2970191 - SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management
– Combination of Inbound and Outbound Transportation (Advanced Transportation
Management) 1909
● 2970165 - SAP Best Practices for S/4HANA Supply Chain for Transportation Management
– Stock Transport Orders (Basic Scenario) 1909
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand the SAP TM evolution and timeline
● Describe the differences between basic shipping and advanced Transportation
Management
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand SAP TM deployment options and migration paths
Deployment Options
The initial release of SAP TM was on SAP NetWeaver or SCM server and used as a separate
application interfacing with SAP ECC. Since SAP S/4HANA 1709, SAP Transportation
Management is part of SAP S/4HANA (embedded TM), which also supports side-by-side
scenarios, meaning that demand can be received from other SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA
instances. Depending on which system is currently implemented, the following scenarios can
used by used to migrate to SAP S/4HANA:
● SAP ERP with SAP TM 9.x: Classic business suite integration of SAP TM and SAP ERP
● SAP S/4HANA with SAP TM 9.x: SAP S/4HANA ERP using SAP TM side car solution. Side-
by-side integration of SAP S/4HANA and the business suite
● SAP S/4HANA ERP with SAP S/4HANA TM: SAP S/4HANA ERP system with
decentralised SAP S/4HANA TM system
● SAP ERP with SAP S/4HANA TM: SAP ERP with side-by-side SAP S/4HANA TM – for
customers not yet converted to SAP S/4HANA ERP
No interface is obviously required if SAP TM is used "embedded", because in this case, all
relevant master data objects are available in SAP S/4HANA, and following the "principle of
one", no replication is required. If SAP TM is used in a "side-by-side" deployment, the
interface used to transfer master data from an SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA system to SAP TM
or SAP S/4HANA TM depends on the destination system. If the receiving system is an SAP
TM 9.x (Business Stack), then CIF (core interface) is used. If the receiving system is an SAP
S/4HANA system, then DRF (data replication framework) is used.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand SAP TM deployment options and migration paths
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Describe the end-to-end transportation processes
The figure, End-to-End Process/Document Flow, gives an overview of the SAP TM document
model. Depending upon the extent of your integration and business requirements, different
objects, documents and statuses are available. Different types of transportation requests can
be created in SAP TM by the execution or order management system. The documents that
are the basis for freight unit creation depend on your business scenario and deployment of
SAP TM, as follows:
● If you are a shipper and you have deployed SAP TM in a side-by-side scenario, (sales/
purchase) orders from your SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA system are the basis for order-
based transportation requirement creation in SAP TM.
● If you are a shipper and you have deployed SAP TM in a side-by-side scenario, (outbound/
inbound) deliveries from your SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA system are the basis for
delivery-based transportation requirement creation in SAP TM.
● If you are a shipper and you have deployed SAP TM in an embedded scenario, (sales/
purchase) orders from your SAP S/4HANA system are directly the basis for freight unit
creation in SAP TM (no replication of data required).
● If you are a shipper and you have deployed SAP TM in an embedded scenario, (outbound/
inbound) deliveries from your SAP S/4HANA system are directly the basis for freight unit
creation in SAP TM (no replication of data required).
● If you are a logistics service provider/forwarder, you create forwarding orders in SAP TM
directly (or based on forwarding quotations).
Upon receiving transportation requirements, freight units are created and become the basic
element for planning the movement of goods through the network. The freight unit is a
transport unit used in planning. It could be a pallet or container, but it could also be two pallets
that need to be transported together, for example, for customs reasons.
Freight orders will record the manual or system-generated transportation planning
(intermodal) activities. These freight orders are the result of planning, consolidation of freight
units on a vehicle, booked capacity, or scheduled means of transport. Once freight orders are
created, carriers are assigned. Once this has been completed, transport order execution can
be triggered and follow-on settlement processing can begin.
Order Management
The business purpose of order management is providing the ability to handle transportation
requests, which are designated as requirements or demands from an ordering system.
One of the major benefits of SAP TM is the ability to use the system integrated to SAP ERP or
SAP S/4HANA as the source demand system ("side-by-side") or as a component within SAP
S/4HANA ("embedded"). So you can see the flexibility with SAP TM from an order
management standpoint. If you choose to integrate with an SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA
system, SAP TM would be integrated by means of Process Integration (PI) interfaces. Orders
and deliveries from SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA can be converted into SAP TM transportation
requirements automatically. LSP forwarding order creation is either done by manual entry in
the SAP TM UI, or integrated from a customer's system via EDI.
You can use the Forwarding Order Management component in SAP TM to create, edit, and
confirm the forwarding orders from your ordering parties. In addition to creating the
forwarding order, you can also enter the data as a forwarding quotation and send it to the
ordering party. You can then create a forwarding order based on the forwarding quotation.
Transportation Planning
You can use the Freight Order Management component in SAP Transportation Management
to create and edit freight orders and freight bookings. You use freight orders for land
transportation and you use freight bookings for sea and air transportation.
Freight orders and bookings are the result of transportation planning.
One of the major benefits of SAP TM is the ability to perform advanced planning activities.
SAP TM has been developed as a planning and execution system desired to support
Transportation Execution
In addition to advanced planning capabilities in SAP TM, your organization can also gain the
added benefit of integration execution activities in SAP TM.
These integration tasks include the following:
● Integration with SAP Event Management (EM) for alerts and transportation tracking
● Trigger generation of delivery documents
● Integration with dangerous goods management
● Document printing
● Integration with SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM)
● Realtime analytics
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Describe the end-to-end transportation processes
Learning Assessment
X A Delivery-based planning
X B Order-based planning
2. Which documents are relevant for the basic shipping scope using SAP S/4HANA Supply
Chain for Transportation Management?
Choose the correct answers.
X A Shipment
X B Sales Order
X C Outbound Delivery
X D Freight Order
X A Source system
X B Destination system
4. Which of the following are the main functional areas of SAP Transportation Management?
Choose the correct answers.
X A Order Management
X B Transportation Planning
X C Transportation Execution
5. Which of the following are valid deployment options for SAP TM?
Choose the correct answers.
Lesson 1
Business Partners 21
Lesson 2
Transportation Network 25
Lesson 3
Transportation Resources 38
Exercise 1: Create Resources 43
Lesson 4
Schedules and Default Routes 51
Exercise 2: Create a Default Route and a Road Carrier Schedule 55
UNIT OBJECTIVES
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand the business partner concept and categories
Business Partners
The master data of customers and vendors is managed in SAP S/4HANA by using business
partner master data. By using this approach, it is possible to centrally maintain the master
data for customers and vendors (in SAP ERP they have been handled separately).
Business partner master data can be maintained with the transaction BP or by using a
corresponding app from the SAP Fiori launchpad. Business partners can be assigned multiple
company codes. Business partners can be categorized as a person, group, or organization. An
organization represents units such as a company, a department of a company, or an
association. Organization is an umbrella term to map every kind of situation in the day-to-day
business activities. A group represents a shared living arrangement, a married couple, or an
executive board.
The link between a business partner and other components is achieved by a role concept. A
business partner role corresponds to a business context in which a business partner can
appear. Relevant business partner roles related to shipping process are:
● Business Partner general (000000)
● Customer (FLCU01)
● FI customer (FLCU00)
● Vendor (FLVN01)
● FI vendor (FLVN00)
● Invoicing Party (BBP006)
● Carrier (CRM010)
This ensures that the relevant master data for the various processes can be recorded
correspondingly and that the business partner can be used for the relevant functions (such as
sold-to party).
You define the general business partner data once and assign business partner roles (BP
roles) to the business partner. Specific data is stored for each business partner role. In this
way, you do not store redundant data, since the general data is independent of a business
partner’s function or application-specific extensions. When you first create a business partner
in the system, the BP role General Business Partner is automatically assigned to the business
partner.
Assigning partner functions in the SAP system determines the functions of particular
partners in the process. A partner function is a particular role that a business partner can take
during the process. For example, one customer orders some products (partner function: sold-
to-party and another customer receives the material (partner function: Ship-to-party). One
partner may have several functions. For example, when all the partner functions within the
customer partner type are assigned to one business partner, the same customer is the sold-
to-party, ship-to-party, payer, and bill-to-party.
The following is a list of partner functions commonly used in the shipping process:
● Consignee
● Bill-to-party
● Carrier
● Shipper
● Ordering party
● Driver
● Payer
● Freight forwarder
Additional text can be defined for the business partner master data and you can use them as
the printing address. The same business partner number can be maintained across multiple
company codes.
Drivers: Drivers operate vehicles. They are defined as business partner with the role driver.
Attributes like driver qualifications, shift sequence, validity period, home location, and
absences can be maintained.
down on the chance of manual errors, and reduces the need to enter a business partner for
each partner function.
In Customizing for Transportation Management under Master Data → Business
Partners → Define Partner Determination Profiles, you can create a partner determination
profile that the system uses to automatically determine the following features:
● Users can specify the list of partner functions that the system makes available in a
business document.
● The level of control the user has in entering the partner function can be defined. Depending
on the settings defined in Customizing, users can change or delete a partner function, or
add a partner function from a list of available partner functions. Settings can be specified
so that users cannot change or delete specific partner functions.
● Users can enable the system to automatically determine business partners based on
specific Incoterms.
● Users can enter a specific static business partner in the profile directly.
You can assign the business partner determination profile to document type customizing (for
example, freight order type customizing) to facilitate automatic business partner
determination.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand the business partner concept and categories
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Explain the transportation network
Location Master
A location is a logical or physical place in which resources are managed on a quantity basis.
This business object is used as the basis for the transportation processes in which you name
a source location, a destination location, and any transshipment locations necessary to
complete it.
Different customizing entries and master data elements from SAP S/4HANA are displayed in
SAP TM as locations with different location types. SAP S/4HANA plants, customers, vendors,
and shipping points are integrated with SAP TM and become the following types of location:
Plants-1001 (production plant) or 1002 (distribution center), Business Partners- 1021
(business partners), and Shipping Points-1003 (shipping point). The following location types
exist:
ID Location Type
1001 Production Plant
1002 Distribution Center
1003 Shipping Point
1021 Business Partner
1030 Terminal
1040 Store
1100 Port
1110 Airport
1120 Railway Station
1130 Container Freight Station
1140 Hub
1150 Gateway
1160 Container yard
1170 Warehouse
1180 Carrier Warehouse
ID Location Type
1190 Rail Junction
1191 Border Crossing Point
If you are using SAP TM in SAP S/4HANA, no integration is required – material master and
business partners are already available. Location master data is created on the fly or via a
report when needed. In traditional SAP TM 9.6 deployment, the location type is automatically
determined based on the object being transferred from SAP S/4HANA. In the SAP S/4HANA
system, each inventory-relevant location can be assigned one or more shipping points. A
shipping point is an independent organizational unit at a fixed location that processes and
monitors inbound and outbound deliveries. The physical address of a shipping point is
represented as a location in master data.
Transshipment locations are used for unloading goods from one freight order and loading
them onto another freight order during the transportation process. This function is necessary
when different means of transport or different transportation service providers (carriers)
have to be used to execute a transportation process, for example, truck-ocean-truck; truck-
rail-truck. Transshipment locations may also be used when consolidating or de-consolidating
goods to be transported.
Geocoding Locations
Locations are critical elements of your transportation network, because they identify source
and destination points. Based on where these two points are located, SAP TM can use
distance and duration to calculate the best means of transporting a product.
Geographical information plays an important role in TM. Almost all business processes relate
to it. High-quality geodata improves these processes. The SAP TM Transportation Network is
the foundation of a transportation planning process.
To see geographic information related to location master data, log into SAP Fiori, then choose
Master Data folder → Define Location.
A location is a specific point on the earth's surface that is defined by the geographical
coordinates of longitude, latitude, and altitude. These coordinates are determined from the
address data of a location. An address can contain a country, region, postal code, city,
district, street, and house number, as well as additional fields. Determining geographical
coordinates from address data is called geo-coding. A geographical information system can
be used to get precise geographical coordinates.
In SAP TM, the location master data object describes the geographical setup of the
transportation network underlying business processes. Location can store an address and the
geographical coordinates that define its position. The accuracy of the geo-coordinates
depends on the address data provided and which service is used to determine them.
Standard SAP applications automatically determine a geo-coordinate at region level when
creating or changing the location address data. This is sufficient for processes not working
with static information or depending on distances, times, or map display. Because geo-
coordinates are the basis for distance and duration determination and map display, they must
be high quality in case those functions are required.
Geo-coordinates are displayed in degrees, minutes, and seconds in the Geographical Data
area of the Location user interface and can be overwritten manually by the user. The Precision
field indicates the granularity of the geo-coding result.
A geocoder determines the geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude) from a given
address. The following two levels of geocoding are possible in SAP TM:
The geocoding program supplied by SAP determines the longitude and latitude based on the
country and region code. There are several companies who provide geocoding products,
including the following: Google, Here, Rand-McNally, PC-Miler, and PTV (Karlsruhe,
Germany).
Transportation Zone
Transportation zones are used to group individual locations. All the properties of zones are
transferred to its locations. Transportation zones are typically used as the origin and
destination points for transportation lanes. Transportation zones reduce the effort needed to
model the geographic network in planning. Grouping locations into transportation zones
reduces the volume of master data in the TM system. Transportation zones can group
locations and can include one-time locations. Transportation zones can include zones within
their locations and sub-zones. For example, all locations that are supplied by the same
warehouse (individual locations and transportation zones) are grouped into a transportation
zone.
If SAP S/4HANA integration through the DRF is used, transportation zones are automatically
created from the address of the location. The location is automatically assigned to the
transportation zone.
Transportation zones are not physical locations and therefore do not have an address.
Transportation zones can also be assigned geographical coordinates. SAP TM offers two
options for calculating these coordinates. After defining the locations, regions, or postal
codes, the system can calculate the coordinates. This estimates the center point of the zone
based on the coordinates of all locations included in the zone. Alternatively, identify the
geographical coordinates and manually enter them in SAP TM.
Using transportation zones as the source, destination, or both, considerably reduces the
amount of transportation lanes to maintain.
A transportation lane points only in one direction. To model the reverse direction, you need to
create another transportation lane.
Trade Lane
A trade lane can have a mode of transport and means of transport. The trade lane defines a
direction for transportation, which is characterized by the orientation, source, and
destination. Possible orientations are: Inbound, Outbound, From, To, Within and Along.
Trade lanes may overlap each other (for example, "From Germany using Airplane" and
"Within Europe using Airplane"). Trade lane hierarchies include transportation zone hierarchy
(for example: "From Germany" implies "From Bavaria", which implies "From Plant_Munich"),
means of transport hierarchy (for example: "Within Germany with Mtr Truck” implies "Within
Germany with Mtr Chilled_Truck") and means of transport – mode of transport relations (for
example: "Within Germany with Mode of Transport Road" implies "Within Germany with Mtr
Chilled_truck").
There is no direct link between trade lane and transportation lane.
Methods of Transportation
Transportation Mode
When all shipping and receiving locations are defined, frame how you intend to ship products
between these locations. The complexity of your shipping scenarios influences how much
detail you need to maintain.
For example, consider whether products are shipped over road, rail, or waterways.
The first configuration step in the transportation process is to identify the transportation
modes that can be used to move products. The transportation mode describes the highest-
level transport grouping, for example, road, rail, inland waterway, sea, or air. Each method of
transport is assigned a single transportation mode.
Transportation Mode Categories
SAP transportation mode categories are road, rail, sea, air, postal service, and inland
waterways.
In addition to the transportation mode category, companies can assign a dangerous goods
transport category. This signals that you may have to ship certain chemicals under pressure
and only certain ways of transporting the product are suitable. These categories define the
type of transport to be used. Category 99 (all modes) is used in the U.S. according to
dangerous goods regulation 49 CFR. Customers can use categories 30 - 89 for their own
definition.
The Main Carriage
The transportation mode can be set as the Main Carriage. The reference to the main carriage
indicates that this segment of transportation is the primary segment. When dealing with
export scenarios, you may have the pre-carriage, main carriage, and on-carriage. In a multi-
modal or multi-stage shipment, the main carriage stage contains all of the shipment
documents. It also allows pre- and on-carriage stages to be linked to it.
These transportation modes can be used at a high level to determine incompatibilities.
When you define the various transportation modes, your company can further define the
transportation process by creating and assigning different means of transport. The means of
transport describes the characteristics of specific vehicle types or classifications that
transport goods, such as a non-refrigerated truck, a refrigerated truck, a 60-foot rail boxcar,
or a bulk container.
Assigning Vehicle Resources to a Means of Transport
The network can be expanded by defining vehicle resources and assigning them to a means of
transport. Vehicle resources in a means of transport have a common set of physical
characteristics that are taken into account during the planning process. These physical
characteristics include the mode of transportation (air, rail, surface, or sea), vehicle capacity,
speed, cost structure, geographic availability, and temperature control. Whether a company-
owned fleet can be used to group vehicles in a means of transport is also a consideration.
Means of transport also allow a company to describe the cost structure and geographical
availability of a class of vehicle.
Means of Transport Settings
There are a number of means of transport settings:
● Transportation mode
● Multi-resource
● Scheduled means of transport
● Own means of transport
● GIS quality
Multi-Resource
Instead of creating individual resources for a means of transport, you can select the Multi-
Resource checkbox for the means of transport. During planning, the system assumes the
availability of the number of resources you define. If you do not specify a number in this field,
the system assumes that an unlimited number of resources are available. During vehicle
scheduling and pre-processing, the number of resources that you define in this field indicates
the maximum number of parallel freight orders that the system is allowed to create for each
resource.
Duration
Duration is one of the key elements to consider when dealing with different means of
transport. This can be influenced by the type of transport as well as the quality or type of
transportation infrastructure used. Selecting the GIS Quality checkbox means your
organization is integrating with a third party geographical information system. This
integration is specific about which routes (interstate highways or county road) are used.
Anticipated speeds for the different types of highways or roads that may be used can be
defined.
If you choose not to integrate with a GIS, you still differentiate durations for different means of
transport. Within each means of transport, you can specify an average speed. The speed is
then used, along with the distance from the transportation lane, to calculate transit duration.
The distance factor establishes the difference between the linear distance between two
locations and the actual distance covered by the vehicle. Based on the linear distance, you
can use this factor to estimate the actual travel distance for a vehicle between two locations.
Together with the average speed, you can estimate the transportation time.
The path finder enables you to easily determine whether a connection exists between two
locations and, therefore, whether you have correctly configured your master data. However,
the path finder does not take incompatibilities into consideration.
● Requests
- Source location
- Destination location
● Options
- Determine path
- Determine connections
● Restrictions
- Outbound, inbound, or implicit hub
- Transportation mode
- Means of transport
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Explain the transportation network
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand resource and resource types
Resources Overview
Resources play a central role in planning and execution within SAP Transportation
Management. Resource data is relevant to the planning of order dates, taking into account
working times and the available capacities of the resources. Resources, in conjunction with
booking, offer the capacity needed to perform transportation activities on freight units, such
as transportation, loading, and unloading activities.
The following resource types exist:
● Vehicle Resource
● Handling Resource
● Calendar Resource
● Transportation Unit Resource
Goods are loaded onto and unloaded from vehicles and transportation unit resource and
transported around the transportation network. Calendar resources specify operating hours
for a location, during which goods maybe dropped off or picked up from this location.
Handling resources offers handling capacity that allows the goods to be loaded or unloaded
from vehicle resources.
Vehicle Resource
Vehicles are moving resources that transport goods between locations, for example, trucks,
rail-cars, planes, and ships. Each vehicle resource represents a unit load, for example, one
trailer of a certain capacity, one container of a certain capacity, or one rail car of a certain
capacity. Eight dimensions and unit of measurements can be used to define vehicle capacity,
for example, mass, volume – that is, the capacity of a trailer can be specified as 40,000 lb, or
2200 cu ft/s, or 24 pallets. Planning can only take the vehicle capacity into account if these
dimensions and unit of measurement correspond to the dimensions and unit of
measurements that are defined in a freight unit building rule.
Vehicle group and vehicle types specify attributes such as physical properties of a certain
kind of vehicle.
All vehicles are assigned to a means of transport (transportation method). Means of transport
are groups of vehicle resources. The transportation mode is assigned to means of transport.
The transportation mode specifies how the goods are transported, for example, as a sea
shipment.
Figure 34: Relationship between Vehicle Resource, Means of Transport and Mode of Transport
There are two types of vehicle resources: passive and active. Active vehicle resources can
travel by themselves. Passive vehicle resources cannot travel by themselves. A truck that has
a motor and can travel by itself is an active resource. An empty trailer with no tractor is a
passive resource.
The means of transport and factory calendar should be defined before creating a vehicle
resource. When creating a vehicle resource, it is recommended that the following information
is input:
● A resource name
● A calendar and time zone
● A capacity
The following fields combined together define capacity and volume and are mandatory for
creating a resource:
● Factory Calendar
● Continuous Dimension
● Capacity
● Unit of Measure
MTr combinations can be used to model truck and trailer combinations. Multiresources can
be used to model an external fleet in one step.
Compartments
Compartments can be used to indicate a division of the vehicle resource (truck) and also the
trailer into smaller units. Capacity constraints can be specified for compartments.
Furthermore, they offer the following benefits:
● Flexible and fixed compartments
● Incompatibilities can be used to restrict certain freight units from being transported in
certain compartments, for example, because of temperature restrictions
The use of compartments allows you to assign dangerous goods to certain areas of the truck.
In addition, the use of compartments improves transportation planning for oil and gas,
chemical, retail, and consumer products.
Means of Transport Combinations
A means of transport combination is an instance of a particular means of transport, or a
group of identical instances of means of transport, that can provide transportation services.
You use this business object to map the capacity and availability of vehicles that you want to
use for transportation.
MTr combinations have the following attributes:
● They can be used to model a truck and trailer combination.
● You specify the number of the objects of each MTr within the combination, for example, 1
truck and 2 trailers.
● You specify capacities (several UoM): Maximum capacities of the combination.
● Additional (freely definable) attributes can be used for compatibilities and
incompatibilities; based on a customizable attribute definition (code + text).
● Coupling/un-coupling durations are defined per passive MTr.
Handling Resource
Handling resources are used for handling transportation orders at a location. The handling
resource offers handling capacity that allows the goods to be loaded onto and unloaded from
vehicle resource, for example, door, loading ramp, or forklift. Handling resources maintain
downtimes, restrictions on simultaneous activities, resource availability, qualification, and
equipment requirements.
Availability times can be maintained by defining capacity variants and shift sequences.
Consumed capacity per loading and unloading operation is maintained in the location master
data with the assignment of the (means of transport-specific) handling resource. The
available capacity is maintained in the resource master data record.
Calendar Resource
Calendar resources determine the operating hours of locations. Loading and unloading
activities can only take place during operating hours. Calendar resources are defined as
resources and can be assigned to multiple locations as:
● Inbound operating hours
● Outbound operating hours
● Means-of-transport specific operating hours (inbound)
● Means-of-transport specific operating hours (outbound)
Availability times can be maintained by defining capacity variants and shift sequences.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. During planning, it is imperative to identify if your organization has
different options to choose from when shipping products between locations. These options
impact the transportation costs and delivery dates based on different transit times. In
Customizing, you create the means of transport to distinguish different ways of moving
product through your network. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to check the appropriate
customizing settings required for transportation planning and subsequently needs to
configure the appropriate resources.
Resource TM2FTL-##
Field Value
Factory Calendar 01
Capacity 20000
Unit KG
Resource TM2LTL-##
Factory Calendar 01
Capacity 10000
Unit KG
7. Create a calendar resource OPEN9TO5-## to represent opening hours. The opening hours
should be from Monday to Friday, from 9.00am to 5.00pm. For this purpose, you have to
define shifts (see the table Shift Definition), shift sequences (see the table Shift
Sequences) and a capacity variant (see the table Capacity Variant).
Resource OPEN9TO5-##
Factory Calendar 01
Shift SHIFT-##
Valid to 31.12.9999
Day Number 1
Valid To 31.12.9999
Shift 1 Shift-##
Capacity Variant 01
8. Verify that your calendar resource only represents opening hours from 9 to 5 on
weekdays.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. During planning, it is imperative to identify if your organization has
different options to choose from when shipping products between locations. These options
impact the transportation costs and delivery dates based on different transit times. In
Customizing, you create the means of transport to distinguish different ways of moving
product through your network. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to check the appropriate
customizing settings required for transportation planning and subsequently needs to
configure the appropriate resources.
Means of transport TM2-FTL belongs to resource class Truck. Other available resource
classes include: Trailer, Locomotive, Railcar, Vessel, Airplane.
The values that you can maintain for speed will be used to calculate approximate
transportation durations based on the geographical distance between locations.
Field Value
Resource TM2FTL-##
Factory Calendar 01
Capacity 20000
Unit KG
Resource TM2LTL-##
Factory Calendar 01
Capacity 10000
Unit KG
7. Create a calendar resource OPEN9TO5-## to represent opening hours. The opening hours
should be from Monday to Friday, from 9.00am to 5.00pm. For this purpose, you have to
define shifts (see the table Shift Definition), shift sequences (see the table Shift
Sequences) and a capacity variant (see the table Capacity Variant).
Resource OPEN9TO5-##
Factory Calendar 01
Shift SHIFT-##
Valid to 31.12.9999
Day Number 1
Valid To 31.12.9999
Shift 1 Shift-##
Capacity Variant 01
j) Create a shift sequence using the Shift Sequences tab. The shifts should repeat every
seven days, but shifts should only be available on days 1 to 5.
k) Select the Shift Sequences tab to create daily windows and enter the data from the
table Shift Sequence.
l) Repeat the previous step k) for 2-7 by replacing the value for Day Number with 2 to 7.
You can also choose Copy. Ensure the day is sequential to the previous entry.
m) Remove the shift entry SHIFT-## from days 6 and 7 of your shift sequence.
u) In the General Data tab, in the Available Capacity screen area, enter the active variant
01.
8. Verify that your calendar resource only represents opening hours from 9 to 5 on
weekdays.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to TM Master Data → Define Resource.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand resource and resource types
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand carrier schedules and routes
Route
Default Routes
A default route defines the sequence of stops for a given source/destination location
combination. Default routes can be used in place of transshipment chains with sales orders
and deliveries, forwarding orders, and forwarding quotations. Default routes can be modified
manually where the desired route is different to that proposed by the system.
To see information related to routes, log into SAP Fiori, then choose Master Data
folder → Define default Routes.
Carrier Schedules
When shipping products via air or ocean, consider that your partners are typically renting
space at a port facility. This facility is used by many parties, and so options for moving
product may be limited.
While the road-based scenario can make use of a variety of transportation lanes due to the
flexibility of the carriers, ocean and air carriers often face more competition and more
regulation. This limits the flexibility for departures and arrivals. From a transportation
planning perspective, the implication is that you may need a more structured and predictable
plan for scheduling purposes. With SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM), your
organization can take advantage of different types of schedules to model specific departure
and arrival rules suited to air and ocean shipping.
Carrier schedules do not just have a start and end destination; they can have multiple stops,
which is common for air transportation. Carrier schedules can be executed by different
carriers on different stages using a connection schedule. It is possible to use a multi-stop
carrier schedule in any sequential location combination, so it is not required to start at the
first and leave at the last location.
Schedules can be created manually in SAP TM and uploaded from an external source. You
can also upload schedules from an external data source to SAP TM by calling function
module /SCMTMS/BAPI_SCHEDULE_SAVEMULT. This function is available for the sea, air,
and road transportation modes. Alternatively, you can upload schedules for the air
transportation mode in a spreadsheet or CSV format to SAP TM by executing report /
SCMTMS/SCH_UPLOAD. For more information, see the system documentation.
You can delete schedules created manually and uploaded by calling function module /
SCMTMS/BAPI_SCHEDULE_DELMULTI or by executing report /SCMTMS/SCH_DELETION.
Schedule Types
SAP TM allows businesses to create different schedule types to handle the multiple shipping
scenarios they may encounter. Schedules can be maintained for each business partner or
carrier, and can identify different loading and unloading points, such as ports and airports.
If you have reappearing transportation traffic in your transportation network scenario, you
can use the schedules functionality. A combination of transportation mode, gateway
customer fact sheets (CFS), direct, and reference fields define the type of schedule.
A gateway schedule includes two gateway locations. In ocean scenarios, the locations could
be the CFS-locations. In air scenarios, they can be the gateway locations.
Gateway Schedules: Subcategories
The following are the subcategories in gateway schedules:
● Direct
The schedule goes from A to B without changing the mode of transport. For example, GW
Nurnberg to GW Hamburg via truck.
● Indirect
The schedule goes from A to B but the mode of transport changes. For example, GW
Hamburg to GW Cape Town via truck and ocean.
Carrier schedules describe a sequence of transportation stops where the start location and
the target stop are not gateways. A gateway is a transportation hub where freight is
consolidated and deconsolidated.
Carrier Schedules
● Ocean Carrier Schedule
Use the ocean carrier schedule to define a standard sequence of transportation stops that
are served by a ship. By specifying departure rules, you can generate voyages
automatically.
● Carrier Flight Schedule
Use the carrier flight schedule to define a standard sequence of transportation stops that
are served by a plane. By specifying departure rules, you can generate flights
automatically.
● Road Schedule
Use the road schedule to define a standard sequence of transportation stops that are
served by a truck.
Schedule Capacities
In the schedule type, you can define if the schedule should have the following items assigned
to it:
● Limited capacities
● Transportation costs
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support its planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP
consultant, needs to create a default route and a road carrier schedule to support this
implementation.
1. Create a default route from your shipping point SP_1010 to transportation zone DE-NRW.
The default route should include the hub location TMCD-Hannover with a 4 hour length of
stay. It should be valid for this calendar year and the next calendar year. Use Default Route
Type TM2R.
3. Create a new road carrier schedule using schedule type TM2S for carrier TM-CAR-10. The
schedule should be valid for the current month and the following two months. Maintain the
following stop sequence:
10 SP_1010 6 6
20 TMAT99-01 0 1
30 TMAT99-02 0 1
40 TMAT99-03 0
5. What is the meaning of the value in the Cargo Cut-Off (offset in days) field?
7. Create departures from today until the end of the next month for your schedule. The
departures should be each Tuesday and Thursday at 09:30. Create a corresponding
departure rule and generate departures based on this rule.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support its planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP
consultant, needs to create a default route and a road carrier schedule to support this
implementation.
1. Create a default route from your shipping point SP_1010 to transportation zone DE-NRW.
The default route should include the hub location TMCD-Hannover with a 4 hour length of
stay. It should be valid for this calendar year and the next calendar year. Use Default Route
Type TM2R.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to TM Master Data → Create Default Route.
c) Choose Continue.
Field Value
Description Default Route for User ##
Valid from Beginning of this calendar year
Valid to End of next calendar year
e) In the Transportation Stops screen area, create three lines by choosing the Create
button three times.
This varies.
3. Create a new road carrier schedule using schedule type TM2S for carrier TM-CAR-10. The
schedule should be valid for the current month and the following two months. Maintain the
following stop sequence:
10 SP_1010 6 6
20 TMAT99-01 0 1
30 TMAT99-02 0 1
40 TMAT99-03 0
c) Choose Continue.
e) In the Standard Stop Sequence screen area, choose Create four times to create four
lines.
This varies.
5. What is the meaning of the value in the Cargo Cut-Off (offset in days) field?
This is the time that the cargo needs to arrive at the departure location prior to the
departure of the truck.
This is the time that the cargo is available after the truck has reached the location.
7. Create departures from today until the end of the next month for your schedule. The
departures should be each Tuesday and Thursday at 09:30. Create a corresponding
departure rule and generate departures based on this rule.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to TM Master Data → Edit Schedule.
b) In the Schedule field, enter the schedule number from the schedule that you have
created in the previous step.
c) Choose Continue.
d) In the Departures screen area, on the Departure Rules tab, choose Create.
e) In the row containing the stage SP_1010 to TMAT99-01, select the checkboxes for
Tuesday and Thursday.
f) In the row containing the stage SP_1010 to TMAT99-01, enter the departure time
09:30.
i) In the dialog box, enter the start date as today's date and the end date as the end of
next month.
The departure time at TMAT99-01 is 15:30. It is 6 hours after the departure from SP_1010.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand carrier schedules and routes
Learning Assessment
1. Assigning partner functions in the SAP system determines the functions of particular
partners in the sales process. Each partner can have only one function.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.
X True
X False
2. When you create transportation zones, it reduces the amount of master data in the
system by grouping locations together. Which of the following are examples of
transportation zones?
Choose the correct answers.
X A Regional Zones
X C Country Zones
X D City Zones
X E Island Zones
3. You cannot assign a transportation zone to itself or to a zone already assigned to the same
zone.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.
X True
X False
4. Which of the following vehicle resource attributes are considered for planning?
Choose the correct answers.
X A Capacity
X B Means of transport
X C Time zone
X D Fuel economy
X E Fuel type
X A Loading and unloading activities can take place outside operating hour when
planned in advance.
X B Loading and unloading activities can only take place during operating hours.
X C Loading and unloading activities can take place only before 08.00 hours.
X D Loading and unloading activities can take place regardless of the operating hours
defined by calendar resources.
X A 1
X B 2
X C 3
X D 4
Lesson 1
Defining Transportation Relevance for Orders and Deliveries 65
Lesson 2
Creating Freight Units 69
Exercise 3: Create Freight Unit Types and Freight Unit Building Rules 77
Exercise 4: Create Freight Units Based on Sales Orders 85
Lesson 3
Conditions and Incompatibilities 93
Lesson 4
Trigger, Create, and Manage Deliveries 100
Exercise 5: Create a Delivery Profile and Trigger Delivery Creation 105
Lesson 5
Building Packages 110
Exercise 6: Configure Package Building and Create Packages based on Sales Orders 119
Lesson 6
Understanding Change Controller 128
Exercise 7: Explore Change Controller Strategies 133
UNIT OBJECTIVES
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Define transportation relevance
Transportation Requirements
The initial event that triggers the transportation management process is a transportation
requirement. Based on the deployment option used for SAP TM, the following are the
transportation requirement starting points:
● Logistics Service Providers (LSPs or 3PLs)
● The side-by-side deployment / external TM system integration
● The embedded deployment / internal TM component integration
Business Functions
The following business functions have to be activated for integrating the SAP TM functionality
within the SAP S/4HANA system:
● LOG_TM_ORD_INT
● LOG_TM_ORD_INT_II
● LOG_TM_ORD_INT_III
● LOG_TM_ORD_INT_IV
● LOG_TM_IV_INT
● SD_01
● OPS_ADVRETURNS_1
Logistics Integration
The following documents can trigger an SAP TM process, either through internal SAP TM
component integration or via external SAP TM system integration:
● Sales orders
● Customer returns
● Purchase orders
● Stock transport order
● Returns stock transport order
● Sales scheduling agreement
● MM Scheduling agreement
● Outbound deliveries
● Inbound deliveries
The following configuration steps enable freight order creation from SD/ MM documents:
● Activate Integration of documents via control key
● Create logistics integration profile
● Assign logistics integration profile to document type
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Define transportation relevance
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Explain freight units and freight unit building rule
Freight Unit
The freight unit is the smallest unit that can be transported. The predecessor document data
and the freight unit building rules form the basis for building freight units. You define the most
important settings for the freight unit in the freight unit type.
Predecessor documents can be forwarding orders, sales order, delivery, order-based
transportation requirements, or delivery-based transportation requirements. For embedded
TM deployment, the sales order or forwarding order will be the predecessor document. For
side-by-side deployment, OTR/DTR and forwarding orders will be the predecessor
documents.
An N:N relationship is possible between the freight unit and its predecessor documents. The
figure below is applicable for the embedded environment. The same applies for the side-by-
side scenario. Freight units can be further deleted, split, merged based on settings defined in
the freight unit type customization.
The following are the configuration settings for freight unit type:
Change Controller Settings: You can assign several different settings related to the change
controller. These settings impact how TM responds to changes made to the freight unit and
freight order.
Additional Strategies: There are a number of additional strategies:
● Creation Strategy: Specifies tasks that the change controller is to perform when creating a
freight order, freight booking, and freight unit.
● Save Strategy: Specifies tasks the change controller is to perform when saving a freight
order, freight booking, and freight unit.
● Delete Strategy: Specifies tasks that the change controller is to perform when a freight
order, freight booking, or freight unit is deleted or canceled.
Planning Settings:
● Planning profile: Planning profile can be assigned to freight unit type for freight order
planning.
● Rule for pick up/ delivery windows: Time windows can be specified for pick up and delivery
of goods. If condition is not defined then rule is considered.
● Condition for pickup and window determination window: Condition /SCMTMS/
TOR_TIMEWIND can be assigned to the freight unit type based on this condition. The
following four dates and times for pickup and delivery are calculated for source and
destination based on information derived from the sales order, forwarding quotation, OTR,
DTR:
- Acceptable start date and time
- Requested start date and time
- Requested end date and time
- Acceptable end date and time
● Carrier Selection Settings: Indicates carrier selection settings that are used for the
determination of direct shipment options.
● Carrier Selection Conditions: Specifies the condition that the system uses to determine
carrier selection settings for direct shipment processes at run-time.
● Direct Shipment Strategy: Specifies the process controller strategy that can be used to
determine the direct shipment options for a freight unit.
Additional Settings:
● Track Changes checkbox: Select this box if changes are to be tracked.
1. The system checks the condition defined in the logistics integration profile. If there is no
condition or the condition cannot determine a result, the system moves to the second
option.
2. The system checks if a freight unit building rule has been maintained in the logistics
integration profile. If no freight unit building rule is maintained, the system moves to the
third option.
When creating freight units, the system first groups all delivery items within the following
parameters:
● Hard constraints for source / destination location and pick-up / delivery dates
● Business document attributes and packaging information
● Incompatibilities
Within the freight unit building rule, you must specify the critical quantity. This parameter
defines the primary unit of measure that allows a line item on a transport requirement to be
split into multiple freight units. Besides that, several planning quantities can be defined, for
example, weight and volume. Every planning quantity is considered for capacity checks of
resources during transportation planning, and every planning quantity is copied to the freight
unit.
The split quantities define the maximum capacity of a freight unit. The system calculates the
freight unit as a multiple of the rounding quantity. If Item Split Allowed is selected, the freight
unit splits the item while it is being built, if it is over the split quantity. The process controller
strategy allows you to use strategies to define the way in which freight units are created, in
accordance with your requirements. If you maintain an equipment type in the freight unit
building rule, the capacity of the equipment is considered during freight unit building and the
items consolidated into one freight unit are loaded into the equipment.
If necessary, companies can define that the freight units are split if certain constraints are
present. For example, you define the maximum capacity of a freight unit using the split
quantity. Let's say you have to transport 5 tons of cement, but you can only transport it in
batches of 500 kg. In this case, you define a split quantity of 500 kg and the system generates
10 freight units.
Based on the definition of freight units, all items included in a freight order are transported
together from their source to their final destination. However, in multi-modal scenarios,
different planners may be involved in scheduling the different stages of the transport. For this
reason, stage information can be added to the freight unit. This allows a degree of
independence when scheduling the stages.
Using the process controller, freight unit building can be adjusted to customer-specific
requirements using ABAP coding.
Simulation: Create Freight Unit Types and Freight Unit Building Rules
For more information on Create Freight Unit Types and Freight Unit Building
Rules, please view the simulation in the lesson Creating Freight Units online in
the SAP Learning Hub.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to define freight unit types and apply
freight unit building rules required for transportation planning.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Review the number ranges used in freight order management in Customizing for SAP TM.
(In SAP TM, the freight unit is a view of the transportation order. The number range for
freight unit and freight orders is maintained as one object.)
2. Create a freight unit type FU##. The freight unit type should have the following attributes:
Field Value
Field Value
5. Create a freight unit building rule FUBR-DR-##. The freight unit building rule should use
process controller strategy FUB_AUTO and create freight units of type FUT2. Item splits
should be allowed and default routes should be applied. In addition, use the following data:
Gross Volume M3 80
7. Create a freight unit building rule FUBR-TM-##. The freight unit building rule should use
process controller strategy FUB_AUTO and create freight units of type FU##. Item splits
should be allowed and default routes should NOT be applied. In addition, use the following
data:
Gross Volume M3 80
Simulation: Create Freight Unit Types and Freight Unit Building Rules
For more information on Create Freight Unit Types and Freight Unit Building
Rules, please view the simulation in the lesson Creating Freight Units online in
the SAP Learning Hub.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to define freight unit types and apply
freight unit building rules required for transportation planning.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Review the number ranges used in freight order management in Customizing for SAP TM.
(In SAP TM, the freight unit is a view of the transportation order. The number range for
freight unit and freight orders is maintained as one object.)
a) In the backend system, execute transaction SPRO and press F5.
d) Explore the intervals defined. You can assign any of the intervals to a freight unit type.
Note the number ranges assigned and how a number range is assigned in the next
step.
2. Create a freight unit type FU##. The freight unit type should have the following attributes:
Field Value
Field Value
e) Enter the data from the table and save your work.
The condition for pick up/delivery time window determination allows you to define and
control how early and/or late you have to pick up or deliver the freight unit.
The system processes a change controller strategy if a business document has been
changed. The change controller strategy specifies how the change controller is to react to
these changes.
5. Create a freight unit building rule FUBR-DR-##. The freight unit building rule should use
process controller strategy FUB_AUTO and create freight units of type FUT2. Item splits
should be allowed and default routes should be applied. In addition, use the following data:
Field Value
Gross Volume M3 80
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Freight Unit Building
Rule.
If you select this checkbox, the system automatically applies the default route when
creating freight units.
7. Create a freight unit building rule FUBR-TM-##. The freight unit building rule should use
process controller strategy FUB_AUTO and create freight units of type FU##. Item splits
should be allowed and default routes should NOT be applied. In addition, use the following
data:
Gross Volume M3 80
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Freight Unit Building
Rule.
The split quantity allows you to control the maximum size of a freight unit.
Business Example
You are a consultant and want to show your customer how to work with the transportation
functionality in SAP S/4HANA. For this purpose, you create two sales orders to show how
freight units get created based on different logic.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-01 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 1 PC of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is DR-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
2. Create a second sales order for customer TM2G##-01 with order type ZTM2. Use the
following organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 2 PC of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is TM-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
3. Check whether freight units have been created for your sales orders by filtering the All
Order-Based Freight Units query for your customer TM2G##-01.
4. How many freight units have been created for each sales order?
6. Which freight unit building rule was used for your first sales order?
7. How many stages have been created for this freight unit?
9. How many stages have been created for the freight unit of your second sales order?
Business Example
You are a consultant and want to show your customer how to work with the transportation
functionality in SAP S/4HANA. For this purpose, you create two sales orders to show how
freight units get created based on different logic.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-01 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 1 PC of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is DR-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Sales Documents → Create Sales Orders.
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
c) Choose Continue.
● Sold-to-Party: TM2G##-01
● Material: TM-MAT-01
● Order Quantity: 1
e) Choose Save.
2. Create a second sales order for customer TM2G##-01 with order type ZTM2. Use the
following organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 2 PC of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is TM-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Sales Documents → Create Sales Orders.
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
c) Choose Continue.
● Sold-to-Party: TM2G##-01
● Material: TM-MAT-01
● Order Quantity: 2
e) Choose Save.
3. Check whether freight units have been created for your sales orders by filtering the All
Order-Based Freight Units query for your customer TM2G##-01.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Logistics Integration → Order Integration (Worklist).
c) Click on the column header for Destination Location and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your customer TM2G##-01 and choose OK.
4. How many freight units have been created for each sales order?
For each sales order, one freight unit has been created.
For your first sales order, freight unit type FUT2 is used, whereas for your second sales
order, freight unit type FU## is used.
6. Which freight unit building rule was used for your first sales order?
FUBR-DR-##
a) Click on the freight unit number (Document column) for your first sales order. It is the
one with the entry DR-## in the Customer PO Number column.
c) You will find the freight unit building rule FUBR-DR-## referenced here.
7. How many stages have been created for this freight unit?
Two stages.
Your sales order from step 1 is the predecessor document of this freight unit.
b) You will find that your sales order is the predecessor document of this freight unit.
9. How many stages have been created for the freight unit of your second sales order?
One stage.
c) Click on the column header for Destination Location and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your customer TM2G##-01 and choose OK.
f) Click on the freight unit number (Document column) for your second sales order. It is
the one with the entry TM-## in the Customer PO Number column.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Explain freight units and freight unit building rule
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand the concept of conditions and incompatibilities
Conditions
BRFplus (Business Rules Framework plus) is a powerful rules based engine, and is used by
TM conditions. TM Conditions empower users to process complex business rules and it
reduces the need to develop, customize and configure. Conditions are used as filters for
automatic decision making. A condition maps input values to output values. For example,
determination of product type, determination of resource type, determination of execution
organization.
There are different types of conditions for different areas. For example, document type
determination, order type determination, loading and unloading durations, incompatibilities,
printing, approvals, tolerances, and any customer-specific rule(s).
● Condition type: First, you define the condition type and specify the origin. Specify the
condition type, the fields against which you are testing, and how you want to store the test
results when creating a condition. This is referred to as the origin of the condition. The
system provides the following three options for the origin of condition:
- Direct business object access: The Direct Business Object Access condition returns
directly the value determined by the data access definition. There is no evaluation of the
data.
- BRF+ Decision Table : The BRFplus Decision Table condition takes the input of the data
access definition and evaluates it in a table. This condition table can be maintained from
the condition user interface. This origin of condition is most commonly used by TM
users.
- BRF+ Expression: The BRFplus Expression is a logical expression.
● Input values: Input values originate in the fields of business objects (direct business object
access) or user-specific fields (data crawler), or values determined in external
determination classes. The available input values depend on the condition type chosen.
The condition type defines the area in which the system is to take the condition into
account. There are various input values and they are determined by the following factors:
- Direct Business Object Access
- Data Crawler
- Determination Class
● Output values: The output of a condition may comprise several output values, all derived
from the input values based on decision making. The output values are determined by the
condition type. For example, the FUB rule is a result of FUB rule determination.
● BRFplus decision table: The system creates a condition based on BRFplus expressions.
The system then processes this table from top to bottom during determination. As soon as
the system finds a row in the BRFplus decision table whose input values match the current
input values, it copies the corresponding output values and processes them in the area
that made the call.
Conditions are tests performed against various objects, such as transportation requirements
or freight units, to determine whether a situation is true or false. For example, to decide if
products on a single transportation requirement can be shipped together, each item on the
OTR is checked for certain parameters. If a certain parameter is found, rules are built to
determine where consolidation can take place. If an incompatibility exists, more than one
shipment is necessary.
If you need additional fields for the condition types to be delivered as standard, or if you want
to use customer condition types, create new data access definitions and extend the
assignments in Customizing. You can also change or add to the data access definitions used
by default. The condition type must be identified when defining a condition in SAP TM. A
condition type is a configurable object that is based on field contents stored in various
business object nodes. Each condition type is assigned to a business object (structure) and
the node name (at the header or item level).
When defining a condition type, you can identify when a result is found, if it is stored in a
structure, and if one or more conditions may exist for this condition type. Condition types are
then assigned to data access definitions. These objects specify what fields and in what
sequence users can define specific condition records.
Incompatibility
During transportation planning, companies prepare a set of guidelines regarding shipping. For
example, if a shipper has products that need to be transported via a refrigerated container,
they cannot ship those products with frozen freight units. While planning transportation
shipments, companies define rules regarding how they consolidate loads into a single freight
order. There are many factors other than capacity that impact how freight orders are built. In
SAP TM, these rules are called incompatibilities. This data defines the relevant parameters
controlling when it is and is not appropriate to consolidate loads.
In the figure, a company has a variety of products to ship. The temperature at which items
must be stored during transit is the attribute that signals if items can be consolidated. A test
is executed to decide the temperature in which each product is shipped. A rule states that
items classified as chilled cannot be shipped with items classified as frozen. This could lead to
damage or spoilage if a product is shipped at the wrong temperature.
Incompatibilities are used in combination with conditions to influence the results in SAP TM
during freight unit building, transportation planning, transportation proposals, and carrier
selection. Incompatibilities are important when defining requirements for load building. For
example, freight units with different incoterms must not be transported together.
Refrigerated goods need to be transported in an appropriate means of transport. Certain
means of transport cannot be loaded at a specific location because the location does not have
a suitable loading ramp.
When creating an incompatibility definition, you must specify a validity area. Validity areas are
comprised of an incompatibility area and an incompatibility type.
Incompatibility areas define where an incompatibility can be used. Four incompatibility areas
exist in TM: Vehicle scheduling and routing planning, Freight unit building, Carrier selection,
Delivery proposals.
Incompatibility Types: Incompatibility types are delivered by SAP and define the objects that
are the focus of the rule being enforced. The following list contains examples of
incompatibility types: Freight unit - Freight unit, Freight unit - Vehicle, Freight unit -
Transshipment location, Carrier - Transportation Order.
In addition to the validity area, the incompatibility definition can determine how the rule is
enforced in both manual and automatic planning by defining the reaction, for example,
incompatibility is ignored, warning if ignored, must not be violated.
Incompatibilities can be defined between two attributes of two business objects. This requires
that two conditions are defined and relevant results are specified. Two business objects are
then incompatible if the result of the conditions matches the relevant results.
Setting the Identical Values Only checkbox in the incompatibility definition allows for an
incompatibility to be defined between two instances of the same business object, for
example, two freight units. In this case, a single condition is defined in the incompatibility
definition. The two business object instances are then only incompatible if their values differ.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand the concept of conditions and incompatibilities
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand how to process deliveries
Delivery Overview
The decision about whether to start the process in TM with either the order or the delivery
depends on the customer requirements and guidelines concerning transportation planning
and execution. If shipping activities other than transportation planning are involved prior to
the transportation process, the process based on the delivery is more likely to be used. If
goods are sold with all shipping activities considered, the order will be the basis for
transportation planning.
There is no difference in the continuation of the process between transportation
requirements based on an order and those based on deliveries. As shown in the figure, both
documents are capable of triggering the entire process.
SAP TM considers data for delivery creation from the order and from the assigned freight
units, freight orders, and freight bookings. Based on the chosen input, SAP TM creates
delivery proposals. A proposal consists of groups of freight units that can be delivered
together.
● Dates: TM uses dates from the freight order or freight booking. If the freight unit is not
planned, that is, no freight order or freight booking exists, then SAP TM uses dates from
the freight units.
● Quantities: TM uses quantities from freight units.
● SD/MM Document References: TM retrieves document references (such as order
document number) from the order / order-based transportation requirement.
Delivery profiles define how delivery proposals should be created. Although the delivery
profile is optional, it makes sense to create a profile to reuse the same settings every time you
want to create delivery proposals. The settings you can define here concern how and if freight
units can be consolidated into one delivery proposal and which freight units may not be
consolidated.
To see information related to delivery profiles, log into SAP Fiori, then choose Profiles and
Settings → Create delivery profile.
You can define how the delivery proposals should be created (for example, one proposal per
item, one proposal per freight unit, and so on). One option of the delivery profile is to “fix” the
planning result for freight units and freight orders. Fixing the planning means after the
planning results are transferred via the delivery proposals, they can no longer be changed in
SAP TM. Incompatibilities in delivery profiles can be used to prevent certain freight units or
items from being consolidated into one delivery proposal.
After the delivery proposals have been sent, deliveries are created. SAP TM receives
information about the status of the delivery creation.
Business Example
You intend to use delivery documents for recording and monitoring the transportation
process after the freight order has been planned. You need to understand how to trigger
delivery creation from SAP TM.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
3. Create a freight order for your freight unit linked to the second sales order from the
previous exercise. It is the one with the entry TM-## in the Customer PO Number column
in the query Freight Units → All Order-Based Freight Units. Create the freight order directly
from the query with the option Create One Per Stage.
4. Trigger Delivery Creation for the freight unit. It is the one with the entry TM-## in the
Customer PO Number column in the query Freight Units → All Order-Based Freight Units.
Use delivery profile DEL-PROF-## and Layout DEL_BUILDER_S4TM1 for this purpose.
6. What are the predecessor and successor documents of your freight unit?
Business Example
You intend to use delivery documents for recording and monitoring the transportation
process after the freight order has been planned. You need to understand how to trigger
delivery creation from SAP TM.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
e) Choose Save.
c) Choose Change.
h) Choose Save.
3. Create a freight order for your freight unit linked to the second sales order from the
previous exercise. It is the one with the entry TM-## in the Customer PO Number column
in the query Freight Units → All Order-Based Freight Units. Create the freight order directly
from the query with the option Create One Per Stage.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Logistics Integration → Order Integration (Worklist).
c) Select the freight unit for your second sales order from the previous exercise. It is the
one with the entry TM-## in the Customer PO Number column.
4. Trigger Delivery Creation for the freight unit. It is the one with the entry TM-## in the
Customer PO Number column in the query Freight Units → All Order-Based Freight Units.
Use delivery profile DEL-PROF-## and Layout DEL_BUILDER_S4TM1 for this purpose.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Logistics Integration → Order Integration (Worklist).
c) Select the freight unit for your second sales order from the previous exercise. It is the
one with the entry TM-## in the Customer PO Number column.
h) Choose Save.
You find your freight unit now in the query for delivery-based freight units.
d) Identify your freight unit. It is the one with the entry TM-## in the Customer PO
Number column.
6. What are the predecessor and successor documents of your freight unit?
Your sales order and delivery are the predecessor document of your freight unit. The
freight order that you have created earlier in this exercise is a successor of your freight
unit.
c) Click on the column header for Destination Location and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your customer TM2G##-01 and choose OK.
f) Click on the freight unit number (Document column) . It is the one with the entry TM-
## in the Customer PO Number column.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand how to process deliveries
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Build packages
Handling Units
A handling unit (HU) is a logistic unit consisting of packaging materials and goods (materials).
Typically, a company does not move individual pieces of different materials, rather, it moves
quantities of materials grouped together as packages. You can depict this situation in the SAP
System using Handling Unit Management.
When you use Handling Unit Management, the system tracks the entire HU rather than
individual materials. The HU is the common unit for material and information flow. A business
transaction for a HU implies corresponding business transactions in the background for the
materials and packaging materials it contains. In this way, one business transaction entry
takes the place of several individual material-movement entries.
You can use handling units and can pass them to partners throughout the supply chain.
Handling units have a single identification number that uniquely identifies the handling unit
across the various processes through which it moves. Using handling units in a cross-system
logistics chain usually requires an identification number that is unique worldwide. You
therefore have the option of assigning a Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) number to
each handling unit.
Packaging Materials
Packaging materials are intended to enclose or hold together the materials that are to be
transported. The packaging materials and the goods material together comprise the handling
unit, as we have seen.
The material that is to be packed can be packed into or onto the packaging material. The
packaging material can also be a load carrier, such as a pallet. The most important packaging
materials include crates, boxes, containers, wire baskets, and pallets.
You have to maintain the material master data for each packaging material you want to use.
When creating material master records for packaging materials, enter either material type,
VERP (packaging) or a customer-specific material type that you have already defined in
Customizing.
When a delivery includes handling unit items, the freight units are adjusted accordingly. All
product items that have been packaged into one handling unit are included in one freight unit;
they are not split across several freight units. In this way, it is ensured that parts of a handling
unit are not assigned to different freight orders during transportation planning.
If, for example, separate freight units were built per product initially, and these products are
consolidated into one handling unit, the separate freight units are merged into one freight
unit.
There is not necessarily a one-to-one relationship between handling units and freight units.
One freight unit can contain several handling units. If desired, freight unit building can be set
up to create one freight unit per handling unit.
Package Building
Orders are placed on products which, during the real process, are packaged to create
packages and pallets (HUs, TUs, main cargo items, and so on). Packaging is a warehouse
process. Warehouse-specific information can influence the result (for example, pick
sequence). For the end-to-end process, the package information is required long before the
warehouse is reached.
The goal for SAP TM is to close the gap between orders based on products and the load
planning happening for packages and pallets, as well as to enable a package building function
that considers warehouse information. Therefore, readily available packaging components
and product master data packaging-specific definitions are reused.
Package Building is inserted into the overall planning process at the freight unit building step.
It allows products to be combined into packages. These packages (within freight units) are
later used in subsequent planning steps (manual and optimizer planning (VSR) to create
freight orders and subsequent load planning).
The package building profile is assigned to the freight unit building rule. In addition, for freight
unit building you can define the maximum number of package items that can be put into a
single freight unit.
The relevant package building profile can be set depending on the process in:
● Freight unit building rule: define package building profile , store package estimate vs
packaging hierarchy.
● Planning profile: define package building profile, enabling consolidation package building.
The product and package type assignment is a new master data transaction that defines, for
each product in the package builder, which package it goes into or onto.
To reduce the effort when maintaining those definitions, it is possible to work with generic
patterns.
The definition can be dependent on the material/ product, business partner, and shipping
location. For example, product A is usually delivered with an EU pallet stacked up to 1.5
meters (first entry). However, when delivering this product to customer X from your
warehouse Y, you use a different pallet type containing product A stacked up to 1.3 meters,
because the customer can only handle pallets up to this height (second entry as exception).
The package builder will always prefer the most specific entry. It will start to search for an
entry matching all 3 key fields exactly. If nothing is found, it will score all other keys in the
following manner:
● How many keys match exactly?
● How many keys match by pattern?
● How many keys are initial?
Package Building Selected Features: During package building, the system bundles products
into packages based on specific constraints, while also keeping the total number of packages
to a minimum. The system can also specify the exact position and orientation of each product
item. You can define these constraints for different combinations of product, business
partner, equipment, and location. If several constraints apply, the system always uses the
most specific constraint.
The system creates mixed packages based on one of the following consolidation types:
● Volume
● Layer Definitions
● Incompatibilities, stacking rules, and product orientations (based on these values, the
system determines the exact positions of each product item in the package (detailed
mixed package building))
Furthermore, the definition allows specific limits to be set regarding the weight and height
that the package builder will consider when packing the product. It is possible to set generally
valid limits on the package material (that is, product master data). For example, you can only
stack an EU pallet up to 1.8 meters and put 900 kg on it. In the product and package type
assignment, you can lower the specific product, customer, and location limits.
When creating packages, the system can split the quantity of a product using the following
criteria:
● Quantity per package
● Maximum height of the package
● Maximum weight of the package
If different products are to be packaged, the system considers the lowest maximum height
and the lowest maximum weight for a product or a packaging material. For example, if each
product has a different maximum height, the system uses the lowest maximum height.
The result of package building is different types of packages, as follows:
● Packages that contain only a single type of product
● Mixed packages that contain several different products
● Packages that consist of several layers: The layers within a package can also contain
different products, which results in mixed layers.
● Nested packages, that is, a package in another package: For example, you can plan 24
cans in one box and 100 boxes in ten layers on one pallet.
● Full packages or incomplete packages: Incomplete packages provide room for further
consolidation.
● Flat or uneven packages: Flat packages are a prerequisite for stackability.
"Late" Package Building: The "late" or "consolidation" package building process defers the
package building process until the vehicle scheduling and routing process has created freight
orders for the individual tours. This allows to add additional information into the package
building process, that is, which products are to be delivered with the same truck/tour/freight
order. Consequently, this information can be utilized to build packages/pallets across freight
units/deliveries.
Package Units: The Package Unit (PU) is an additional business document. It represents one
or multiple packages to be transported together across multiple stages (capacity
documents). The PU is not needed if there is only one stage. It can have a deep packaging
hierarchy, for example, pallet – carton – product. It is (technically) a transportation unit (like
container units, trailer units, and railcar units). It can represent both capacity document and
demand document. That means, package units can be assigned to freight orders / bookings
and container / trailer / railcar units, but at the same time freight units can be assigned to a
package unit. Typical examples for package units are pallet, pallet cage, box, carton.
The package unit provides additional functionality to enable an integrated delivery and line
haul planning process:
The PU type allows defining the flexibility of assigning predecessor documents to the PU:
● Completely: A freight unit is completely assigned to the PU. This is the standard approach
of assigning freight units.
● Partially: A freight unit can be distributed among multiple PUs (multi-assignment), but the
PUs are assigned to one single capacity document. This is a new approach, which helps to
avoid freight unit splits and an increasing number of documents in scenarios with freight
units' items distributed across multiple package units (for example, pallets).
If PUs containing the same freight unit get assigned to different capacity documents, the
freight unit gets split to ensure the fundamental freight unit consistency principle (it
represents the goods transported together across the whole transportation chain).
Business Example
You are a consultant and want to show your customer how to use the package building
functionality of TM in SAP S/4HANA. For this purpose, you have to create a package building
profile and assign it to your freight unit building rule.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a package building profile PBP-S4TM2-##. Use the Package Builder. Ignore
incomplete products and select PAL as the unit of measure for normalized quantity. The
mode for mixed package building should be detailed. The product arrangement should be
in layers and profile S4TM2-PBOPT should be used as a profile for the package building
optimizer.
2. Create a freight unit building rule FUBR-PB-##. The freight unit building rule should use
process controller strategy FUB_AUTO and create freight units of type FUT2. Item splits
should be allowed and package building profile PBP-S4TM2-## should be used. In
addition, use the following data:
Field Value
Gross Volume M3 80
5. What is the maximum weight of a package from material TM-MAT-P1 and packaging
material TM-MAT-V1?
6. What is the length, width, and height of material TM-MAT-P1? What is its gross weight?
8. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-01 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 100 PCs of material TM-MAT-P1 and the customer reference is PB-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
9. Check whether freight units have been created for your sales order by filtering the All
Order-Based Freight Units query for your customer TM2G##-01.
10. Which document type (freight unit type) is used and which freight unit building rule was
applied to create the freight unit?
11. How many packages have been created? What is the gross weight of each package?
12. What is the tare weight, net weight, and gross weight of a full pallet?
Business Example
You are a consultant and want to show your customer how to use the package building
functionality of TM in SAP S/4HANA. For this purpose, you have to create a package building
profile and assign it to your freight unit building rule.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a package building profile PBP-S4TM2-##. Use the Package Builder. Ignore
incomplete products and select PAL as the unit of measure for normalized quantity. The
mode for mixed package building should be detailed. The product arrangement should be
in layers and profile S4TM2-PBOPT should be used as a profile for the package building
optimizer.
a) In the backend system, execute transaction SPRO and press F5.
e) In the Package Building Profile Description field, enter Package Building Profile
for user ## .
j) In the Mixed Package Building Mode dropdown field, select Detailed Mixed
Package Building.
m) Choose Save.
2. Create a freight unit building rule FUBR-PB-##. The freight unit building rule should use
process controller strategy FUB_AUTO and create freight units of type FUT2. Item splits
should be allowed and package building profile PBP-S4TM2-## should be used. In
addition, use the following data:
Gross Volume M3 80
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Freight Unit Building
Rule.
a) Select the row with product number TM-MAT-P1 and check the Packaging Material
column.
5. What is the maximum weight of a package from material TM-MAT-P1 and packaging
material TM-MAT-V1?
a) Select the row with product number TM-MAT-P1 and check the columns Maximum
Weight of Package and Max. Weight Unit of Measure.
6. What is the length, width, and height of material TM-MAT-P1? What is its gross weight?
The gross weight is shown on the Basic Data 1 tab. It is 16 kg. The length, width, and height
is on the Units of Measure tab. Length and width are 25 cm. The height is 50 cm.
c) In the pop-up window, select the Basic Data 1 view and choose Continue.
g) Select the row with 1 PC and scroll to the right to find length, width, and height.
c) In the pop-up window, select the Basic Data 1 view and choose Continue.
8. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-01 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 100 PCs of material TM-MAT-P1 and the customer reference is PB-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Sales Documents → Create Sales Orders.
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
c) Choose Continue.
● Sold-to-Party: TM2G##-01
● Material: TM-MAT-P1
e) Choose Save.
9. Check whether freight units have been created for your sales order by filtering the All
Order-Based Freight Units query for your customer TM2G##-01.
c) Click on the column header for Destination Location and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your customer TM2G##-01 and choose OK.
10. Which document type (freight unit type) is used and which freight unit building rule was
applied to create the freight unit?
Freight unit type FUT2 is used and freight unit building rule FUBR-PB-## was applied.
a) Click on the freight unit number (the Document column) for your sales order. It is the
one with the entry PB-## in the Customer PO Number column.
c) You will find the freight unit building rule FUBR-PB-## and freight unit type FUT2 being
referenced here.
11. How many packages have been created? What is the gross weight of each package?
Four packages have been created. Three full pallets with 29 PCs and a gross weight of 486
kg and one package with 13 PCs and a gross weight of 220 kg.
12. What is the tare weight, net weight, and gross weight of a full pallet?
The gross weight of a full pallet is 486 kg. It consists of the gross weight of the packaging
material (22kg) (that is, the tare weight) and 29 times the gross weight of the material TM-
MAT-P1 (16 kg), that is, 29*16=464kg (the net weight).
b) Select one row with a full package (gross weight = 486 kg).
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Build packages
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Explain change controller
Process Controller
The process controller is a framework with which you can define your own strategies,
methods, and how your planning process is executed.
You can use strategies to define complete processes. By assigning a service, you define the
area in which the process is to be used, for example, transportation charge management,
freight unit building, or VSR optimization. SAP delivers a number of standard strategies.
Methods define the individual process steps of a strategy.
● Carrier selection
● VSR optimization
● Manual planning
● Change controller
● Definition of customer-specific functions
In this lesson, we are going to focus on change controller. The other areas listed will be
explained in other units.
Change Controller
Whenever there are changes to transportation requirements, for which follow-up documents
already exist, SAP TM provides support to react to these changes. For example, if the quantity
of a sales order changes, and that sales order is already planned in SAP TM, you might have to
adjust your transportation plan. SAP TM provides a configurable, flexible framework to
support change processes. In the example of a quantity change, the system can check the
resource capacity and remove freight units from planning if the resource is overloaded. In
addition, a user could be informed of changes via an alert.
The change controller checks whether one of the following business documents/objects has
changed and how the system is to process these changes:
● Freight unit
● Transportation unit
● Freight order
● Freight booking
● Service order
● Schedule type
You can also define your own actions. You can also react to other changes, and even to
custom fields. If you want to enhance the standard logic of the change controller for
determining changes to business documents, you must make the necessary settings for the
following BAdI:
Determination of Changes for Change Controller
SAP TM provides a set of predefined change strategies. You use strategies to define complete
processes. Methods define the individual process steps of a strategy. You can also define your
own strategies and methods, and in doing so, the way in which your process is executed.
If the system is unable to process a change controller strategy due to a locking issue, you can
use the background program /SCMTMS/PROCESS_TRIGGER_BGD to reprocess the
strategy.
The configuration settings relating to how changes should be processed on a freight unit,
freight order, or freight bookings are located in the type customizing of these documents. You
can specify the change controller settings for the business document types in SAP TM
Customizing:
● Default Change Strategy: You can assign a default change controller strategy (default
strategy) to each business document type. If you have defined several change controller
strategies, you can use a condition for determining the adequate change controller
strategy.
● Strategy Determination Condition: If you indicate a strategy determination condition, the
system uses the change strategy found via the condition. The system determines the
change controller strategy at runtime based on the strategy determination condition. If
you do not indicate a condition or if the condition does not return a strategy, the system
automatically uses the default change strategy.
● Quantity Tolerance Determination Condition: You can use a tolerance determination
condition to determine tolerances that are to be taken into account in the case of a
quantity change in a business document (freight unit, freight booking, or freight order).
This means that if a quantity is changed, the change controller evaluates this condition to
dynamically check if a quantity change can be tolerated. If no condition of this type is
assigned to a business document, only the standard logic to classify quantity changes is
processed. The standard logic classifies all quantity changes as relevant quantity changes.
This means that in case of a quantity change, the change controller evaluates this
condition to dynamically determine if this quantity change can be classified as relevant or
if it can be ignored. You assign this quantity tolerance determination condition to your
business document type (for example, freight unit type). The result of a tolerance
determination condition has an impact on the evaluation of the change controller condition
that is assigned to the same business document type. The indicator for a quantity change
that is provided as a data access definition to the change controller condition can change
from "Relevant Quantity Change Determined" to "No Relevant Quantity Change
Determined" if the quantity change is within the tolerances found.
● Date tolerance determination condition: You can use a date tolerance determination
condition to determine the tolerances for a date change in a business document. This
means that in case of a date change, the change controller evaluates this condition to
Business Example
You are a consultant and want to show your customer how change controller strategies are
determined and how you can control system behaviour using them. For this purpose, you
create a sales order, plan it, and subsequently change the ship-to-party.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
3. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-03 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 1 PC of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is TM-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
4. Create a freight order for your freight unit created in the previous step. It is the one with
the entry TM-## in the Customer PO Number column in the query Freight Units → All
Order-Based Freight Units. Create the freight order directly from the query with the option
Create One Per Stage.
5. Review the freight order in SAP TM. Note down the freight order number.
What is the freight unit’s planning status? What is the freight order’s life cycle status?
Is the freight order still assigned to the sales order and the freight unit? What is the freight
order’s life cycle status? What is the freight unit’s planning status?
Business Example
You are a consultant and want to show your customer how change controller strategies are
determined and how you can control system behaviour using them. For this purpose, you
create a sales order, plan it, and subsequently change the ship-to-party.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
3. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-03 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 1 PC of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is TM-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Sales Documents → Create Sales Orders.
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
c) Choose Continue.
● Sold-to-Party: TM2G##-03
● Material: TM-MAT-01
● Order Quantity: 1
e) Choose Save.
4. Create a freight order for your freight unit created in the previous step. It is the one with
the entry TM-## in the Customer PO Number column in the query Freight Units → All
Order-Based Freight Units. Create the freight order directly from the query with the option
Create One Per Stage.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Logistics Integration → Order Integration (Worklist).
c) Select the freight unit created in the previous step. It is the one with the entry TM-## in
the Customer PO Number column.
5. Review the freight order in SAP TM. Note down the freight order number.
What is the freight unit’s planning status? What is the freight order’s life cycle status?
The freight unit status is Planned. The freight order’s life cycle status is In Process.
c) Select the freight unit created in the previous step. It is the one with the entry TM-## in
the Customer PO Number column and open it by clicking on its number.
e) On the Document Flow tab, review the freight order’s life cycle status.
b) Enter the number of the previously created sales order and press Enter.
Is the freight order still assigned to the sales order and the freight unit? What is the freight
order’s life cycle status? What is the freight unit’s planning status?
No, the freight order is no longer assigned. The freight order’s life cycle status has
changed to Canceled. The freight unit status has changed to Not Planned.
c) Choose Refresh.
d) Select the freight unit created in the previous step. It is the one with the entry TM-## in
the Customer PO Number column and open it by clicking on its number.
f) On the Document Flow tab, verify that no freight order is linked to your freight unit.
g) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Order Management → Edit Road Freight Order.
h) Enter the freight order number of the previously created freight order and choose
Continue.
i) On the Statuses tab, review the freight order's life cycle status.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Explain change controller
Learning Assessment
1. You can assign logistics integration profile to a sales order document type?
Determine whether this statement is true or false.
X True
X False
X True
X False
X C Incompatibilities
5. What are the allowed relationships between freight units and handling units?
Choose the correct answers.
X A 1:1
X B 1:n
X C n:1
6. The change controller allows you to react to changes in quantities, dates/times, and
locations.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.
X True
X False
Lesson 1
Transportation Planning 142
Exercise 8: Create Freight Order Types 151
Lesson 2
Selection and Planning Profiles 157
Exercise 9: Create a Selection Profile 161
Exercise 10: Create a Planning Profile 169
Lesson 3
Transportation Cockpit 176
Exercise 11: Configure a Transportation Cockpit Layout 183
UNIT OBJECTIVES
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand the transportation planning process
Order Consolidation
Order consolidation is the grouping of orders with the same ship-from and ship-to locations to
create more efficient shipment quantities.
The result of order consolidation is that one or more freight units are combined into one
freight order. A freight unit is a business object representing the smallest possible
transportation unit. Business examples of order consolidation are multiple orders that have
been received over time and can be planned to be shipped together. This can be at individual
line item level. Customers who make-to-order, and do not ship complete orders to their
customers, may consolidate line items from multiple orders as they are produced and as their
delivery-due lists are created.
The figure Routing, Scheduling and Carrier Selection outlines the process of routing and
scheduling in the following way: a freight unit X is first routed using the transportation
planning function, for example, a transportation proposal. Based on this routing, three stages
are created for freight unit X, as follows:
● A stage for US road pick-up transport
● A stage for the ocean voyage
● A stage for EU road delivery transport
Up to a certain point, these stages are planned independently of each other because different
(local) planners may be responsible for scheduling each of the three stages. A freight order is
created as a result of this stage. Finally, carriers are selected based on specific criteria. This is
described as a three-step process but a planner can decide whether to perform planning and
carrier selection in two steps or three. It is also possible for the SAP TM optimization function
to plan all three steps in one run – this planning strategy is called one step optimization.
Process Steps
The steps involved in the process, whether one, two, or three step, can be described as
follows:
● Three step
3. Carrier selection
● Two step
2. Carrier selection
● One step
1. One-step optimization determines the route and plan, creates a freight order and
selects a carrier
Planning Constraints
SAP TM can consider numerous constraints during planning. Which ones are relevant and
should be used in a specific scenario largely depends on the scenario itself. Constraints can
have physical root causes, such as vehicle capacity or handling capabilities for loading and
unloading at certain facilities. On the other hand, constraints can have process-related root
causes. For example, a delivery tour should have a maximum of 25 drops in a day. This is a
maximum that will fit in a driver’s daily schedule, assuming they have to unload at the door
and do some paperwork for each customer drop.
Assets, Facilities, Resources and Times
There are a number of assets, facilities, resources, and times:
● Vehicle capacity
● Vehicle combinations (truck and trailer)
● Compartments
● Depot locations
● Handling resources, opening hours (calendars and shift patterns)
● Schedules
● Incompatibilities – constraints by design
● Decreasing capacities
● Max number of transshipment locations
● Max limits on distance, duration, or stopovers
● Pick-up and deliver time windows
● Min and max storage time at hub – cross-docking changeover
● Loading and unloading durations
● Scheduling constraints
Freight Orders
The freight order's execution is planned by a carrier or the shipper. The freight order contains
the following:
● When and onto which vehicle freight units are to be loaded
● Planned departure times for the vehicle
● Execution data
Freight orders are used for land transportation and freight bookings are used for sea and air
transportation. Freight orders contain the following information:
● Planning information, for example, planned means of transport and stages, routing,
planned pickup and delivery dates, durations, and distances
● Document dependencies, as well as predecessor and successor documents
● Transportation charges and cost distribution
● Cargo information: quantities and weights, goods information
● Execution information
● Business partner information
● Output management
● Status information and blocking information
● Subcontracting information
1. Manually: Manual creation is generally used when you already know the most important
transportation data, such as source location, destination location, and business partner,
because you regularly transport goods for a certain customer using a certain carrier.
2. Work-list: Some of the information, like source and destination location, are automatically
populated in the freight order if you create the freight order from the freight unit work-list.
3. Copying: You can create a freight order by copying an existing one (a reference
document). The system copies the header data and the logistical data. However, it does
not copy references to freight units and execution information.
4. FUBR rule: You can create freight orders via the short-cut process on the basis of a freight
unit building rule, which will be explained in more detail later in this lesson.
5. The more advanced features of creating freight orders are their interactive creation in the
transportation cockpit, VSR optimization, and the use of transportation proposal
functionality. These topics will be covered once we have finished the relevant
configuration.
A freight order type defines parameters that influence how the system processes the freight
order. When manually creating a freight order, the user has to select a freight order type. If
freight orders are created during planning and have associated settings in the planning
profile, the system determines the freight order type according to the Customizing settings.
■ Star-Shaped Based on FU Stages: Based on the information from the freight units,
the stages have the same start location but different end locations (for example, for
parcel freight orders or freight orders for customer pick-up).
■ Star-Shaped Based on FU Stages (Reversed): Based on the information from the
freight units, the stages have the same end location but different start locations (for
example, for freight orders for customer self-delivery).
■ Linear with (De-)Consolidation Stages: This sequence type contains three parts.
■ In the first part (pre-carriage), all stages have different start locations but the
same end location at which consolidation takes place. The graphical structure of
the transportation chain has a star shape.
■ In the second part (main carriage), the sequence of stages is linear.
■ In the third part (on-carriage), all stages have the same start location at which
deconsolidation takes place but different end locations. The graphical structure
of the transportation chain has a star shape.
■ Undefined: There is no sequence of stages since there are no stages, only locations.
● Charge Calculation and Settlement Document Settings:
- Enabling charges and settlement
- Enable cost distribution
● Execution Settings: You can define, for example, whether the system is to perform the
execution steps within Transportation Management. You can define additional conditions
that need to be fulfilled so that the status Ready for Execution can be set. Moreover, you
can define settings for integration with SAP Event Management.
● Organizational Unit Determination: You can define how the system determines the
purchasing organization and the execution organization. The system first checks the
Condition field. If you have not entered a condition or if the condition does not return a
result, the system checks whether the Consider Organization Unit of User checkbox is
selected and whether the user is assigned to a purchasing organization and an execution
organization. If the user is not assigned to a purchasing organization and an execution
organization, the system uses the data maintained in the Default Org Unit area.
● Change Controller Settings: You can define settings for the change controller, for example,
a default change strategy and a condition for change strategy determination.
● Output Options: You can define an output profile and a text schema, for example.
Freight Bookings
Freight bookings are used to reserve freight space on a vessel or in an airplane. The
corresponding mode-specific freight documents are called ocean freight bookings and air
freight bookings. They provide mode-specific information, such as the vessel name or flight
number. The space reserved by freight bookings is consumed by assigning freight units or
container units to the bookings.
An ocean freight booking represents ocean transportation from a port of loading to a port of
discharge, and an air freight booking represents air transportation from an airport of
departure to an airport of destination. Freight bookings can cover a consolidation location
before the source and de-consolidation location after the port. These consolidation and de-
consolidation locations are called container freight stations (CFSs) in the ocean case and
gateways for the air case.
A freight order type defines parameters that influence how the system processes the freight
bookings.
The following are a few differences between freight orders and freight bookings:
● All booking types can be subcontracted, in contrast to freight order types, which can forbid
subcontracting to cover transportation businesses fully relying on their own fleets.
Although carrier selection and tendering are offered for freight orders, only carrier
selection is possible for freight bookings. In most scenarios, the carrier is already known at
the time of booking creation.
● Whereas freight orders allow star-shaped, unrelated, and other stage structures, freight
bookings allow only sequential stages.
● Freight orders cover self-delivery and self-pickup scenarios, which are not relevant for
freight bookings.
● You can create pickup and delivery freight orders for the stages from consolidation
location to source (air-) port and from destination (air-) port to de-consolidation location,
respectively. The freight booking type can define the pickup freight order type and delivery
freight order type.
● You cannot assign drivers to bookings.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to configure the freight order type needed
for planning in SAP TM.
The freight order type defines the most important settings for the freight order. In this
exercise, you can practice creating freight order types.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
1. In Customizing for SAP TM, view the number ranges used in freight order management.
2. Create a freight order type F2## using the following data and configure the settings based
on the business requirements:
Field Value
Business requirements:
● The freight order numbers should be numbers between 200000000 and 299999999.
● The transportation mode for the freight orders should default to road.
● The units of measure in the freight order should default to Kilogram and Cubic meter.
● The user can calculate the transportation charges in the freight orders.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to configure the freight order type needed
for planning in SAP TM.
The freight order type defines the most important settings for the freight order. In this
exercise, you can practice creating freight order types.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
1. In Customizing for SAP TM, view the number ranges used in freight order management.
a) In the backend system, execute transaction SPRO and press F5.
c) Choose Execute
f) Choose Exit.
2. Create a freight order type F2## using the following data and configure the settings based
on the business requirements:
Field Value
Field Value
Business requirements:
● The freight order numbers should be numbers between 200000000 and 299999999.
● The transportation mode for the freight orders should default to road.
● The units of measure in the freight order should default to Kilogram and Cubic meter.
● The user can calculate the transportation charges in the freight orders.
Field Value
The Sequence Type of Stages specifies the type of structure to link stages to one another.
Seven sequence types are available for freight order types, among them: (1) Defined and
Linear - The sequence of stages is linear, which means that there is a single start stage
and all other stages have one predecessor stage. There is also a single end stage and all
other stages have one successor stage. (2) Non-Linear (Star-Shaped) - All stages have the
same start location but different end locations. The graphical structure of the
transportation chain has a star shape. (3) Star-Shaped Based on FU Stages - Based on the
information from the freight units, the stages have the same start location but different
end locations (for example, for parcel freight orders or freight orders for customer pick-
up).
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand the transportation planning process
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand the selection and planning profile
Selection Profile
Freight units are selected based on the dates and times they were originally scheduled to be
picked up (loading start) and delivered.
Within each section, you define an inclusive or exclusive set of location values that determine
which freight units are relevant for planning. Each section allows users to define specific
values or ranges of values. Using these parameters of greater than, less than or not equal to
users are able to define precise criteria for planning.
Selection profiles are used to select documents/objects (freight units, freight orders, freight
bookings and transportation units). The selection profile is a user-specific grouping of
business documents that is considered during transportation planning. The system takes into
account the selection profile created during interactive planning, VSR optimization, and
carrier selection.
In the selection profile and in the assigned selection attributes, you define which business
documents the system is to take into account, as well as the maximum number of
documents. You can assign the following selection attributes to a selection profile:
● Time-related selection attributes in which you define the demand horizon.
● Geographical selection attributes in which you define source and destination locations or
zones.
● Additional selection attributes in which you define additional attributes for database
queries.
The geographical profile distinguishes which source and destination locations are relevant for
freight unit selection. The geographical profile is split into four sections:
● Source Locations
● Source Transportation Zones
● Destination Locations
● Destination Transportation Zones
Within each section, you define an inclusive or exclusive set of location values that determine
which freight units are relevant for planning. Each section allows users to define specific
values or ranges of values, using the logical greater than, less than, or not equal to, to provide
precise.
Time-Related Attributes: You can define the demand horizon as absolute or relative. With
absolute time periods, you define the demand horizon precisely by defining a start and end
date and a start and end time (calendar date). If using relative times, you do not define the
demand horizon with precise dates and times, but specify instead a duration starting from the
current date. The system automatically determines the start and end date and the start and
end time. If the demand horizon is not to start on the current date, you can define an offset.
If you specify a factory calendar, the system considers non-working days when calculating the
start of the horizon. In this situation, the planning horizon always begins on a working day.
You can round the horizon to full days and define the time zone to be used for this rounding.
Additional Selection Attributes: More selection criteria can be defined using additional
selection attributes. You can select objects and their fields and the criteria.
You are working in the transportation planning department. In order to divide the planning
tasks among your colleagues, who are each responsible for the planning for different shipping
locations, you want to create several selection profiles. The selection profiles have to be set
up such that they match each planner's needs.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
This exercise uses the location TMAT##-01, TMAT##-02, TMAT##-03, that you
have created in the exercise "Create Transportation Zones and Transportation
Lanes".
1. Create a new selection profile FU_SEL_## to select freight units that fulfill the following
criteria:
● Only freight units that match both mentioned geographical criteria should be selected.
● The pick-up date should be between today and 30 days into the future.
● The delivery date should be between today and 60 days into the future.
You are working in the transportation planning department. In order to divide the planning
tasks among your colleagues, who are each responsible for the planning for different shipping
locations, you want to create several selection profiles. The selection profiles have to be set
up such that they match each planner's needs.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
This exercise uses the location TMAT##-01, TMAT##-02, TMAT##-03, that you
have created in the exercise "Create Transportation Zones and Transportation
Lanes".
1. Create a new selection profile FU_SEL_## to select freight units that fulfill the following
criteria:
● Only freight units that match both mentioned geographical criteria should be selected.
● The pick-up date should be between today and 30 days into the future.
● The delivery date should be between today and 60 days into the future.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Selection Profile.
c) Choose Save.
● Pick-Up in Days: 30
● Delivery in Days: 60
l) Choose Save.
Planning Profile
Planning profiles are used to influence and control the outcome of the planning process. A
planning profile must be specified for a background optimizer run as well as for interactive
planning (manual planning) in the transportation cockpit. During planning, the system
considers the settings that you make in the various planning profiles.
A user defines various settings on the planing profile, these settings determine how planning
is to be performed. Settings belonging to a certain area are grouped together, for example, all
the settings required for load planning are grouped under load planning settings. The
following figures shows the eight settings that are defined in the planning profile. All these
settings can be maintained independently and can be used for other planning profiles as well.
In addition to these settings, the following functionality is defined in the planning profile as
well:
● Planning Horizon: Planning horizon defines the horizon in which new freight documents
can be created by planning. The planning horizon is defined in the planning profile in days,
hours, and minutes. The planning horizon starts at the current system time unless an
offset is defined in the planning profile. The offset can be defined in both the past and the
future.
● Default Business Document Type: The business document determination rule defines
which document types are used when freight orders and freight bookings are created
during planning. The business document determination rule is defined for each planning
profile and applies to documents created either manually or by the VSR optimizer. Freight
order type and freight booking type can be determined in the following 3 ways:
- The default type is defined in customizing
- The type is defined in the planing profile directly
- A condition can be used determine the result
● Check: The check defines the check strategy and for handling capacity violation.
● Package building profiles: The package building profile is a collection of parameters with
which you control the creation of packages. When you are doing package building based
on the capacity documents then you assign package building profile to planning profile.
The package building profile is defined in customizing.
● Parallel processing profiles: By defining parallel processing the run-time for big
optimization scenarios can be reduced. The parallel processing profile is defined in
customizing and assigned to planning profile.
Strategies: The planning profile includes settings to control the different steps of the
optimization. These steps are controlled by strategies. Strategies are made up of various
programs. If you wish to perform manual planning or a scheduled planning run, there is a
standard strategy for each function. Standard strategies are delivered by SAP. However,
unique strategies can be created using process controller.
1. Capacity selection settings: The capacity selection settings define which vehicle
resources, containers, drivers, and schedules are selected for transportation planning.
This setting involves selecting the resource capacity in the transportation cockpit.
Schedules are also selected based on the criteria defined in the capacity selection
settings. The mode of transportation can be maintained explicitly. Many fields in the
resource can be used for selection. A few of them are listed below:
● Location
● Equipment types
● ID
● Planning Block
● Resource owner
Note: If you use resources for which you have defined an ADR limit, VSR optimization
takes into account the number of ADR points for this resource during the optimization run.
Moreover, you can specify that resources for which you have set a planning block are not
displayed in the resource lists of the transportation cockpit.
Note: The Agreement concerning the international carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road
(ADR) is an international standard governing the transport of dangerous goods by road.
The agreement describes an exemption based on the calculation of points for dangerous
goods. If the points total calculated according to the method described does not exceed
1000 points, the exemption can be applied.
2. Optimizer Settings: Here, you can define the optimizer run-time, the maximum number of
transshipment locations and processes, and the freight order building rule, for example.
You also specify whether you require rough or detailed information for your planning
activities, define the required process controller strategy, and configure the settings for
generating transportation proposals.
SAP delivers the planning strategies VSR_DEF and VSR_1STEP as standard for the
optimization. You can use the planning strategy VSR_1STEP to control whether the
system is to perform carrier selection immediately after VSR optimization. The results of
the VSR optimization run are explained in the explanation tool.
In the advanced settings, you can also specify whether the main aim in your transportation
proposals is to ensure the lowest transportation costs possible or the shortest
transportation duration possible, based on the planned delivery date/time. You can also
define preferences in relation to your relative weighting of the variance of carriers, routes,
and departure dates, or activate or deactivate capacity constraints at transportation
mode level. You can also specify whether the system is to ignore certain settings such as
the capacity or ADR limit of a resource during VSR optimization.
VSR optimization generates a transportation plan from the optimization data consisting of
planned freight orders. It processes freight orders already available from a previous VSR
optimization run or manual planning. VSR optimization inserts the freight units into the
transportation plan and modifies these initial solutions by, for example, loading a freight
unit on to another capacity or by changing the delivery sequence of a capacity.
The optimizer tries to minimize the total costs while adhering to the constraints. At the
end of the planning run, VSR optimization returns the best solution found. You can
generate multiple alternative transportation proposals for each freight unit. You can then
choose to use one of them.
3. Load optimization settings for: Here, you can define the optimizer run-time, the planning
strategy, and various rules for load planning. For example, you can define the maximum
height difference between stacks in a row, stack height ascending in driving direction. The
standard strategy used for load optimization is ALC_DEF.
4. Constraints and costs settings: Here, you define costs related to freight units and means
of transport. In most cases, these costs are not actual costs. They simply offer a means of
controlling the result of the optimization run (for example, earliness costs and lateness
costs).
6. Carrier selection settings: Here, you specify whether the system is to use transportation
allocations or business shares. The planning strategy used for carrier selection is
TSPS_DEF. Additional strategy for cost, priority, cost+priory or cost* priority is defined.
7. Settings for manual planning: Here, you specify how you want the system to behave when
it assigns documents and resources:
● Assignment of documents: You use these settings to control how the system is to
assign one or more requirement documents to a capacity document.
● Removal of the assignment of documents: You use this setting to control how the
system is to remove the assignment of requirement documents to capacity
documents.
● Assignment of resources and creation of documents: You use these settings to control
how the system is to assign resources to documents and how it is to create and assign
reference documents.
● Driver Assignment: You use these settings to control how the system will assign trucks
to the drivers.
8. Scheduling Settings: You define loading and unloading durations for scheduling. The
schedule strategy defines the actions that are performed when scheduling is launched for
a freight order or freight booking in the transportation cockpit. Standard strategy used for
scheduling settings is VSS_DEF. The schedule strategy is assigned to the planning profile.
Here, we define if the system considers the dates in the freight unit as constraints and
whether a backward or forward scheduling direction is used.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to create a planning profile to be used
during transportation planning.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
Duration in Days 30
2. Create a capacity selection settings CAPA-## and assign it to your planning profile
S4TM2-PLAN-##. The capacity selection settings should select the resources TM2FTL-
## and TM2LTL-## that you have created in a previous exercise.
3. Create manual planning settings MAN-PLAN-## and assign it to your planning profile
S4TM2-PLAN-##. Use manual planning strategy VSRI_SCH and the following data:
Field Value
4. Create scheduling settings SCHEDULING-## and assign it to your planning profile S4TM2-
PLAN-##. Use scheduling strategy VSS_DEF and the following data:
Field Value
5. Assign the calendar resource OPEN9TO5-## to your customer location TM2G##-02 and
TM2G##-03.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to create a planning profile to be used
during transportation planning.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
Duration in Days 30
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Planning Profile.
2. Create a capacity selection settings CAPA-## and assign it to your planning profile
S4TM2-PLAN-##. The capacity selection settings should select the resources TM2FTL-
## and TM2LTL-## that you have created in a previous exercise.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Planning Profile.
b) Enter the name of your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and choose Continue.
c) In the Profile Assignments area of the Planning Profile, select the New link next to
Capacity Selection Settings.
d) In the pop-up window, enter the profile name CAPA-## of your capacity selection
settings and description Capacity Seletion Settings ##.
g) Enter the following data into the table for Vehicle Resources:
● Sign: Inclusive
● Option: Pattern
3. Create manual planning settings MAN-PLAN-## and assign it to your planning profile
S4TM2-PLAN-##. Use manual planning strategy VSRI_SCH and the following data:
Field Value
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Manual Planning
Settings .
e) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Planning Profile.
f) Enter the name of your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and choose Continue.
g) In the Profile Assignments area of the Planning Profile, enter the Manual Planning
SettingsMAN-PLAN-##.
4. Create scheduling settings SCHEDULING-## and assign it to your planning profile S4TM2-
PLAN-##. Use scheduling strategy VSS_DEF and the following data:
Field Value
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Scheduling Settings.
● In the Inbound tab in the Fixed Unloading Duration area, choose Create
e) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Planning Profile.
f) Enter the name of your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and choose Continue.
g) In the Profile Assignments area of the Planning Profile, enter the Scheduling
SettingsSCHEDULING-##.
5. Assign the calendar resource OPEN9TO5-## to your customer location TM2G##-02 and
TM2G##-03.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to TM Master Data → Define Location.
c) Choose Change.
h) Choose Save.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand the selection and planning profile
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand the transportation cockpit
Transportation Cockpit
The transportation cockpit is the main UI for performing planning. Transportation planning,
including freight order creation, is conducted in the transportation cockpit. Transportation
requirements lists (freight unis), capacity lists (vehicle resources and schedules), order lists
and order details can be all seen in the transportation cockpit. The following are
transportation cockpit tasks:
● Manual planning
● Creation of transportation proposals
● VSR optimization
● Load planning
● Carrier selection
● Triggering of a tendering process
● Creation of delivery proposals
● Creation of freight bookings
The cockpit requires users to enter several profiles that govern the content of generated
result lists. The selection profile determines what is to be planned, that is, what freight units or
freight orders are pertinent for a particular objective. The planning profile determines how the
selected freight units are planned. The capacity selection profile restricts the planning run in
relation to the transportation resources that can be used. Once the profiles have been
determined, planners can use the cockpit to create freight bookings or manage existing
freight orders.
The transportation cockpit is dynamic and can be configured as per users requirements. The
transportation cockpit layout offers flexible settings to control what information is presented
and the processing options available. Depending on the user requirements, certain elements
can be hidden or visible on a page. Page layouts are used to define a view the user wants to
see during planning. A page layout defines the buttons, functions, levels and hierarchies that
are displayed in the transportation cockpit, carrier selection and delivery creation application
UIs.
A combination of selection and planning profile together with a page layout can be assigned to
a profile and layout set, such that this specific planning scenario is always shown in this
layout, while another planning scenario requires another layout. Profile and layout sets are
used to distinguish between different planning areas or functions. One profile and layout set
can be assigned as the default. Such a profile and layout set is based on the specific
information requirements of a planner. For example, in one scenario, a planner has to plan
liquids on tank trucks and must be able to see the volume of product, while in another
scenario, the liquids are in barrels on pallets and the planner requires the pallet count to be
displayed. It is possible to switch between different layouts on-the-fly, for example, if a multi-
step planning process leads to different needs in each step. The following are a few examples
of different layout sets:
● A set for a planner who plans the next day
● A set for a dispatcher who makes the planning changes for today
● A set for an air and ocean planner
In the standard layout, the main screen is broken up into four quadrants (views). The
maximum number of views in any layout is 6. If a user works with several screens, they can
choose a separate layout for each screen. The transportation cockpit can be deployed in
multiple windows on up to three screens. Note 2551221 provides additional information on
this topic: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2551221.
Hierarchical view: You organize the view in the transportation cockpit by creating hierarchical
views for freight orders, freight bookings, and transportation units (trailer units, rail-car units,
container units, and package units). If you organize these business documents into
hierarchies, you can filter and sort various areas in the transportation cockpit according to
specific criteria, such as the vehicle resource. Defining hierarchical views simplifies your
rescheduling activities and the coupling and uncoupling of trailers. The following notes
provide additional information on this topic:
● 2768608
● 2182927
Maps: The map can be displayed as one screen area in the transportation cockpit or in full
screen. However, having the map displayed as one screen area enables the planner to directly
see the selected freight units, freight orders or bookings, transportation units, and resources
on the map. You can perform the following actions on the map:
● Address Search: You can use the context menu of the map to start the address search and
display the search results on the map. The address search is based on the geocoding of
the location. This allows you to perform several address searches and display the search
results simultaneously on the map. You can use the context menu of the map to hide the
search results individually or completely.
● Route Display: You can use the context menu of a connection line to determine a route
display along real street routes. This function is dependent on the geographical
information system available in the system. Alternatively, you can use the context menu of
a resource to display the connection lines of all freight orders assigned to this resource.
● Dynamic Adjustment: You can adjust the map display to meet your individual needs by
selecting the option Show Display Profile from the context menu for the map. For example,
you can specify whether map objects are to be shown or hidden, whether you want to
display the descriptions, and whether you want to allow clustering for overlapping nodes.
● Create Location and Transportation Zone: You can use the context menu for the map to
create locations and transportation zones directly on the map. The locations or
transportation zones are created where you open the context menu. However, you cannot
use the context menu to change the positioning of an object on the map.
● Proximity Search: You can use the context menu of the map to find resources as well as
unplanned freight units or transportation units that are close to a particular point on the
map.
● Resource Item: You can use the context menu of the map to specify the exact location of a
resource at any time.
● Differentiate Between Business Documents Using Colors: You can use the context menu of
the map to display different colors for multiple business documents selected
simultaneously. This enables you to better differentiate between the documents. The color
of each respective document is displayed in the Color column in the document list.
Gantt Chart: The Gantt chart is fully integrated into the transportation cockpit. The Gantt
chart is a screen area in the transportation cockpit, which can be enabled in a page layout of
the transportation cockpit. You can also update maps, generate transportation proposals,
and run optimizer planning for the selected items in the Gantt chart and in the lists and
hierarchies of the transportation cockpit. The Gantt chart has the following features:
● Transparent availability of resources and drivers: The chart panel presents you with an
overview of the availability of vehicle resources, handling resources, and drivers over time.
For example, different colors indicate whether a truck has a document assigned to it, or
whether it is traveling, in downtime, or in non-working time. You can also check whether a
handling resource is available or in downtime at a location and if a drivers is available or if
he is absent. You can use the Operating Time Calendar hierarchy to visualize the operating
time configured for a specific location. The Operating Time Calendar displays the non-
working times and activities occurring in that location. These activities are: loading,
unloading, prepare, and finalize. The hierarchy also displays the overlaps between loading
activities.
● Visibility of utilization of resources: You can display the level of consumed capacity of a
vehicle resource at a specific point in time. The system displays the utilization curve of the
selected vehicle resource in the chart panel. The tool-tip along the utilization curve
displays the loading utilization of a vehicle resource in terms of volume, weight, alternative
quantity, or normalized quantity, depending on your settings in customizing. The tool-tip
along the utilization line of a handling resource presents you with information on the
available capacity, required capacity, and over-capacity of this handling resource at a
specific point in time. You can display loading or unloading activities that are planned for a
handling resource at different times.
● Option to display or hide document separators in the Gantt chart: The Gantt chart
presents you with document separators indicating the precise document start and
document end. You can choose to display or hide document separators in the Gantt chart
by selecting the corresponding checkbox in the legend area. Document separators apply
to the resources (truck, trailer, driver, locomotive, rail-car and container).
● Option to display or hide time windows in the Gantt chart: The Gantt chart presents you
with time windows indicating when goods are to be picked up and delivered. In the Gantt
chart, time windows are shown as dotted lines and solid lines. You can choose to display
the time windows by using the corresponding check-boxes in the legend area.
● Option to display and solve warnings in the Gantt chart: The Gantt chart presents you with
warnings such as the Missing Stage warning or the Incorrect Driver Assignment warning
that are indicated by a warning icon. You can solve a warning using the context menu. You
can choose to display or hide this type of warning in the Gantt chart by selecting the
respective checkboxes in the legend. The legend area also displays the number of
warnings for each warning type. Moreover, the number is dynamically updated once a
warning of a certain type is solved or generated. Besides of the legend area, the Number of
Warnings column in the table area shows you the total number of warnings on each row in
a real-time manner. You can also deselect a certain warning type in the legend area so that
warnings of that type are not considered when calculating the total number.
● Insights into planning and execution status of documents and transportation activities: If
you transfer event-related data from SAP Event Management to SAP Transportation
Management, you can gain real-time insights into the planning status and execution status
of the documents and transportation activities in the chart panel. The statuses of
documents and activities are presented in predefined colors and patterns, as described in
the legend. Note that the Gantt chart automatically hides a legend item in the legend area if
no corresponding documents or activities are shown in the chart area.
● Flexible and dynamic switch between different views: You can switch between a single view
and a dual view (with its horizontal and vertical versions). In the chart panel of each view,
you have the option to switch between a document view and an activity view. The
dropdown lists and the related pushbuttons in the toolbar enable you to switch
dynamically between views and hierarchies that are pre-defined in Customizing. For
example, in a horizontal dual view, you can choose to display freight orders in the upper
view and trucks in the lower view, so that you can assign unplanned freight orders to trucks
using drag and drop.
● Flexible rendering of hierarchical structures: You can simplify the hierarchical structure of
document flows in Customizing so that stage documents can be directly shown under a
higher-level parent, instead of their direct parent. This provides you with more flexibility to
render document flows in the Gantt chart.
● View all objects with one click: Bird Eye provides you with the capability to have a
panoramic view of all objects with one click. With this feature turned on, the system
intelligently adjusts the zoom rate so that all items are displayed on the chart without a
need to move the horizontal scroll bar. This feature can be implemented on all rows or just
on visible rows. This can be configured in Gantt Chart customizing.
● Personalize table area appearance: You can personalize the appearance of the table area
with the following options:
- Display or hide a column
- Modify the column sequence
- Adjust the column width
Moreover, you can save all personalization settings as a variant so that the table area is
presented with the saved settings for the next time you load the Gantt chart.
● Configurable visualization of notifications: You can define the color and height of a certain
type of notifications in the Gantt chart. Moreover, you can configure when to display the
following types of notifications by specifying a utilization range value of vehicle resources:
- Empty run
- Low utilization
- Overcapacity
You can change the layout to suit your requirements by choosing the Page Layout button. For
example, you can change to a layout that displays the command line and so allows command
line planning.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Planning should be executed to a large extend interactively in the
transportation cockpit. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain the planning functionalities
available in the transportation cockpit and its configuration.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a page layout (LAYOUT-##) for the transportation cockpit. Select the Activate
Command Line checkbox. For transportation proposals you want to use layout
TPLAYOUT_S4LG1. In the cockpit, you want to have the following pushbuttons available:
● Save
● Refresh
● Deselect All
● Transportation Proposals
2. Create two profile and layout sets. Use the following data and select the default checkbox:
Field Value
Field Value
Field Value
3. Personalize the Freight Unit Stages screen area. Add the Original Order, Original Delivery,
and Index columns. Save your variant as FU-## Stages.
4. Personalize the Trucks screen area. Add the Index column and move the Index column to
the very left. Save your variant as Vehicles-##.
5. Personalize the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area. Add the Index and Carrier
Description columns. Save your variant as FreightOrders-##.
7. Maximize the Trucks screen area to review details about the selected vehicles. What is the
maximum weight of vehicles resources TM2FTL-## and TM2LTL-##? Return to your
cockpit layout.
9. Show the large map in the transportation cockpit with all objects. Why does your vehicle
resource appear in the Atlantic ocean to the south-west of Africa?
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Planning should be executed to a large extend interactively in the
transportation cockpit. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain the planning functionalities
available in the transportation cockpit and its configuration.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a page layout (LAYOUT-##) for the transportation cockpit. Select the Activate
Command Line checkbox. For transportation proposals you want to use layout
TPLAYOUT_S4LG1. In the cockpit, you want to have the following pushbuttons available:
● Save
● Refresh
● Deselect All
● Transportation Proposals
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Page Layouts for
Transportation Cockpit.
b) Choose New.
Field Value
f) In the Page Layout Switch screen area, choose Add Entry three times and select the
page layouts TCLAYOUT_SIMPLE, TCLAYOUT_FUNCTIONS, TCLAYOUT_VISUAL.
g) Review the Pushbuttons for Application Toolbar options. Select the following
checkboxes:
● Save
● Refresh
● Deselect All
● Transportation Proposals
h) In the Top Left Area, choose Add Content and enter the data from the tables in the Top
Left Area tab and do not make any other changes.
j) In the Middle Left Area, choose Add Content and enter the data in the Middle Left Area
table and do not make any other changes.
l) In the Middle Right Area, choose Add Content and enter the data in the Middle Right
Area table and do not make any other changes.
n) In the Bottom Left Area, choose Add Content and enter the data in the Bottom Left
Area table and do not make any other changes.
p) In the Bottom Right Area, choose Add Content and enter the data in the Bottom Right
Area table and do not make any other changes.
2. Create two profile and layout sets. Use the following data and select the default checkbox:
Field Value
Field Value
b) Choose New.
c) Enter the data from the first table to create your profile and layout set.
d) Choose New.
e) Enter the data from the second table to create your profile and layout set.
g) Select your first profile and layout set and choose Continue to go to the cockpit.
3. Personalize the Freight Unit Stages screen area. Add the Original Order, Original Delivery,
and Index columns. Save your variant as FU-## Stages.
a) In the Freight Unit Stages screen area, choose Settings to show the list of available
settings.
b) Select Original Order, Original Delivery, and Index in the Columns tab.
c) Choose OK.
d) Save your variant by clicking on the dropdown menu next to Standard and select Save
As.
f) Choose OK.
4. Personalize the Trucks screen area. Add the Index column and move the Index column to
the very left. Save your variant as Vehicles-##.
a) In the Trucks screen area, choose Settings to show the list of available settings.
d) Choose OK.
e) Save your variant by clicking on the dropdown menu next to Standard and select Save
As.
g) Choose OK.
5. Personalize the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area. Add the Index and Carrier
Description columns. Save your variant as FreightOrders-##.
a) In the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area, choose Settings to show the list of
available settings.
c) Choose OK.
d) Save your variant by clicking on the dropdown menu next to Standard and select Save
As.
f) Choose OK.
7. Maximize the Trucks screen area to review details about the selected vehicles. What is the
maximum weight of vehicles resources TM2FTL-## and TM2LTL-##? Return to your
cockpit layout.
The maximum weight of TM2FTL-## is 20000 KG and the maximum weight of TM2LTL-
## is 10000 KG.
b) Choose Minimize.
9. Show the large map in the transportation cockpit with all objects. Why does your vehicle
resource appear in the Atlantic ocean to the south-west of Africa?
Because you have not created any data yet, the only objects that are selected are your
vehicle resources TM2FTL-## and TM2LTL-##. The vehicle resources appear with
geoocoordinates of longitude 0 and latitude 0, which is in the Atlantic ocean.
c) Choose Minimize.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand the transportation cockpit
Learning Assessment
1. Planning is carried out on the freight unit, which must first be created. Which of the
following options can trigger the creation of a freight unit?
Choose the correct answers.
X A Freight Order
X B Purchase Order
X C Forwarding Order
X D Sales Order
X B Compartment capacities
X C Depot locations
X D Driver qualifications
Lesson 1
Performing Interactive Planning 196
Exercise 12: Create Freight Orders Interactively 203
Lesson 2
Practice Freight Order Scheduling 211
Exercise 13: Schedule Freight Orders 215
UNIT OBJECTIVES
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Perform interactive planning
Manual planning can be done with multiple windows. The transportation cockpit can be
deployed in multiple windows on up to three screens.
● Run the transportation cockpit on multiple windows, select a separate layout for each
screen.
● Drag and drop from any list/hierarchy in one window to any other list/hierarchy.
● Actions triggered from global toolbar (for example, undo, redo, assign selected items,
update map or optimization) consider selected objects from all windows.
● A change in one window automatically updates the other windows.
● The display of the command line must be activated for the page layout for the
transportation cockpit.
● The index field should be displayed for the freight unit stages and vehicles in the
transportation cockpit.
The help field of the command line provides additional information. Choose More Field Help in
the context menu for the field by clicking the right mouse button.
You can carry out your planning activities on the map. If you select Unplanned Freight Units
and Start Planning from the context menu, for example, the system shows the possible
assignments of the freight units to the resources. Select the assignments that you require.
You can also assign unplanned freight units or multi-relations that contain unplanned freight
units to resources by using drag and drop. When you do so, you can either assign the freight
units to the resource or the resource to the freight units.
If you want to split a stage that is displayed on the map, you can assign an unplanned freight
unit or multi-relation to a location using drag and drop. Once you have selected the required
planning option, the system adds the selected location to the freight unit stage and updates
the map accordingly. This process also applies to freight orders.
You can also display transshipment locations that are not part of your planning activities. You
display these locations by choosing Show Related Transshipment Locations from the context
menu.
If a freight order does not have a vehicle assigned to it, you can also assign the vehicle using
drag and drop. To do so, you assign the freight order to a single vehicle resource or a multi-
spot that contains at least one vehicle resource or passive vehicle resource and then select
the relevant planning option from the menu.
The system displays all of your transportation planning activities on the map. When you leave
the full display of the map, your planning activities are also displayed in the table view of the
transportation cockpit.
Interactive Planning on the Map: You can carry out your planning on the map.
● If you select Unplanned Freight Units and Start Planning from the context menu, for
example, the system shows the possible assignments of the freight units to the resources.
Select the assignments that you require.
● You can also assign unplanned freight units or multi-relations that contain unplanned
freight units to resources by using drag and drop. When you do so, you can either assign
the freight units to the resource or the resource to the freight units. You can use the
proximity search in the context menu to find unplanned freight units and transportation
units that are within a specific radius of a resource or a location.
● If you want to split a stage that is displayed on the map, you can assign an unplanned
freight unit or multi-relation to a location using drag and drop. Once you have selected the
required planning option, the system adds the selected location to the freight unit stage
and updates the map accordingly. This process also applies to freight orders.
● You can also display transshipment locations that are not part of your currently selected
planning activities. You display these locations by choosing Show Assigned Transshipment
Locations from the context menu.
● In the context menu for a freight unit, you can add locations.
● If a freight order does not have a vehicle assigned to it, you can also assign the vehicle by
using drag and drop. To do so, you assign the freight order to a single vehicle resource or a
multi-spot that contains at least one vehicle resource or passive vehicle resource and
select the relevant planning option from the menu. You can use the proximity search in the
context menu to find available resources that are within a specific radius. You can also
specify the exact position of a resource at any time in the context menu of the map.
● In the case of resources on the map, you can find the assigned business documents by
selecting the corresponding option from the context menu for the resource. The system
searches for already planned freight orders and adds these to the map.
● You can use the context menu of the map to display different colors for multiple business
documents selected simultaneously. This enables you to better differentiate between the
documents. The color of each respective document is displayed in the Color column in the
document list.
● The system displays all of your transportation planning activities on the map. When you
leave the display of the map, your planning activities are also displayed in the table view of
the transportation cockpit.
A zoom bar on top of the screen area can zoom in and out to see a more detailed view of a day
or week, or a more general view of the year.
An important factor for transportation planning is the utilization of a vehicle. The utilization of
the vehicle can be displayed with the utilization view, which can be enabled when needed. The
utilization view shows the utilization of the vehicle over time in a graph. The graph is displayed
in a detail line below the actual resource or document. In this case, the single-view is chosen.
This enables the user to see all of the execution information within one screen. Multiple
loading acts are only displayed as one item in the Gantt chart. This keeps the chart clean and
easy to understand.
Interactive planning can be performed in the Gantt chart using drag and drop. Unplanned
freight orders can be assigned to resources. Likewise, resources can be assigned to freight
orders. The freight order is dropped on the time bar of the resource. If the freight order is not
dropped at the same date it was originally planned, the date where it was dropped is taken
over into the freight order. Scheduling is only performed when requested using the Scheduling
button on top of the Gantt chart. The dual-view can be selected to have the unplanned freight
orders displayed on top and the available resources below. This enables the user to work with
one window to plan freight orders. The dual-view can either be displayed horizontally or
vertically. The size of each area can be changed by dragging with the mouse.
The Gantt chart enables the planning of unplanned freight orders by dragging on vehicle
resources, as well as the creation of transportation units. When dragging and dropping the
loading activity of one freight order into the time bar of another freight order, both freight
orders are combined.
Overlap means the resource was planned multiple times and is therefore not executable. For
example, if the trailer is already planned and newly planned in a later step, this would cause an
overlap which the user gets displayed as a red line.
Similar to the utilization view, an overlap view shows if several documents on a resource
overlap. This overlap can be overcome by scheduling the resource.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain the planning functionalities
available in SAP TM to the client’s transportation planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create several sales orders so that you have data for planning. Take note of the sales
order numbers that you create. Use the following data:
Field Value
Distribution Channel 10
Division 00
Quantity 1 6 2 5 3 4
Sales Or-
der Num-
ber
2. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use your transportation cockpit layout. Use the following data:
Field Value
Layout LAYOUT-##
3. Perform manual planning with TM2FTL-## using drag and drop functionality on your
freight units to TM2G##-01.
4. Confirm that a freight order with a temporary freight order number has been created in
the order area.
5. Review the freight order in the Overview screen area. Can you explain the durations that
have been calculated and that are shown?
6. Perform manual planning with TM2FTL-## on your first freight unit to TM2G##-02 using
the command line. Enter the index number of the first freight unit to TM2G##-02, the
character - (minus) and the index number of TM2FTL-##. For example, 5–1.
7. Confirm that a freight order has been created in the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings
screen area with a temporary freight order number.
8. Review the freight order in the Overview screen area. Can you explain the durations that
have been calculated and that are shown?
9. To perform manual planning using the interactive map, select one of your freight units to
customer TM2G##-03, one of the freight orders to TM2G##-01 or TM2G##-02 and the
vehicles TM2LTL-## and TM2FTL-##. Assign the freight unit to the existing freight order.
11. Switch to the layout TCLAYOUT_VISUAL and plan one unplanned freight unit to
TM2G##-02 on vehicle TM2FTL-## in the Gantt chart screen area after having maximized
this area.
12. Remove any overlaps (if they exist for vehicle TM2FTL-##) by dragging and dropping
freight orders in the Gantt view.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain the planning functionalities
available in SAP TM to the client’s transportation planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create several sales orders so that you have data for planning. Take note of the sales
order numbers that you create. Use the following data:
Field Value
Distribution Channel 10
Division 00
Quantity 1 6 2 5 3 4
Sales Or-
der Num-
ber
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
c) Choose Continue.
● Material: TM-MAT-01
e) Choose Save.
f) Repeat steps d and e with the other columns from the table.
2. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use your transportation cockpit layout. Use the following data:
Field Value
Layout LAYOUT-##
b) Select the row with the relevant entries from the table above.
c) Choose Continue.
3. Perform manual planning with TM2FTL-## using drag and drop functionality on your
freight units to TM2G##-01.
a) Select the two freight units to TM2G##-01.
b) Drag the freight units to vehicle resource TM2FTL-## and drop the freight unit on the
resource.
4. Confirm that a freight order with a temporary freight order number has been created in
the order area.
a) A freight order with a temporary freight order number has been created on the
resource.
5. Review the freight order in the Overview screen area. Can you explain the durations that
have been calculated and that are shown?
In the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area, select the temporary freight order
and choose Actions → Details. The freight order will be displayed in the Details section
(lower left screen area). Select the Overview and choose Maximize. The duration is
approximately 4 hours. In the row for the shipping point, you will find the Start of Activity
and End of Activity. The difference is the loading duration (10 minutes). You also find the
departure time in this row. In the row for the customer, you will find the Start of Activity
and End of Activity. The difference is the unloading duration (10 minutes). You also find
the arrival time in this row. The difference between departure and arrival is the transport
duration. All times have been calculated according to the settings that you have
configured in planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-##. Exact distances and duration may vary
based on GIS setup.
6. Perform manual planning with TM2FTL-## on your first freight unit to TM2G##-02 using
the command line. Enter the index number of the first freight unit to TM2G##-02, the
character - (minus) and the index number of TM2FTL-##. For example, 5–1.
7. Confirm that a freight order has been created in the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings
screen area with a temporary freight order number.
a) A freight order with a temporary number has been created in the Freight Orders/
Freight Bookings screen area.
8. Review the freight order in the Overview screen area. Can you explain the durations that
have been calculated and that are shown?
In the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area, select the temporary freight order
and choose Actions → Details. The freight order will be displayed in the Details sections
(lower left screen area). Select the Overview and choose Maximize. The duration is
approximately 4 hours. In the row for the shipping point, you will find the Start of Activity
and End of Activity. The difference is the loading duration (10 minutes). You also find the
departure time in this row. In the row for the customer, you will find the Start of Activity
and End of Activity. The difference is the unloading duration (10 minutes). You also find
the arrival time in this row. The difference between departure and arrival is the transport
duration. All times have been calculated according to the settings that you have
configured in planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-##. Exact distances and duration may vary
based on GIS setup.
9. To perform manual planning using the interactive map, select one of your freight units to
customer TM2G##-03, one of the freight orders to TM2G##-01 or TM2G##-02 and the
vehicles TM2LTL-## and TM2FTL-##. Assign the freight unit to the existing freight order.
a) Select the freight unit to TM2G##-03 in the Freight Unit Stages screen area.
b) Select the freight order to TM2G##-02 in the Freight Orders/Freight Bookings screen
area.
f) To show the geography of the selected items in more detail, drill into Germany.
g) Select the freight unit to TM2G##-03 and right-click to display the context menu.
i) Choose one planning option, for example, Assign freight unit stage to freight order
stage $2.
j) Choose OK
In the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area, select the temporary freight order
and choose Actions → Details. The freight order will be displayed in the Details section
(lower left screen area). Select the Overview and choose Maximize. You will notice that a
freight order with two stages has been created. The first stage starts at shipping point
SP_1010. The stages end at the two customers that are being part of this freight order:
TM2G##-03 and TM2G##-02.
a) In the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area, select your freight order.
11. Switch to the layout TCLAYOUT_VISUAL and plan one unplanned freight unit to
TM2G##-02 on vehicle TM2FTL-## in the Gantt chart screen area after having maximized
this area.
a) In the Page Layout button, select TCLAYOUT_VISUAL.
12. Remove any overlaps (if they exist for vehicle TM2FTL-##) by dragging and dropping
freight orders in the Gantt view.
Overlaps are allowed because TM2FTL-## resources are defined as multi resources.
a) In the Trucks part of the screen, drag and drop freight orders so that they do not
overlap.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Perform interactive planning
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Practice freight order scheduling
● Plan drivers to freight orders
Scheduling
Scheduling determines start and end times for a set of dates and times such as the departure
and arrival of a freight order, the pick-up and delivery of the assigned freight units, or the
coupling and uncoupling of trailers. In scheduling, the system considers multiple constraints
like a predefined relative ordering among the activities of the freight order as well as the pick-
up windows and the delivery windows of the assigned freight units. Scheduling can be
triggered for one or more selected freight orders and is based on your settings in the planning
profile.
Freight Order Scheduling
The scheduling of freight orders can be initiated in the following ways:
● Time windows for loading and unloading activities for your freight units
● Appointments for the freight order to which your freight units are assigned
● Loading and unloading durations of your freight units
● Location sequence of your freight order
● Existing freight orders on resources
● Coupling and uncoupling durations
● Calendar resources as well as the calendars and capacities for the loading and unloading
activities of handling resources
● Calendars of the involved vehicle resources for loading, unloading, transportation,
coupling, and uncoupling activities
You can view the scheduling results on the Gantt chart and in the requirement document.
After scheduling, the requirement document contains the transportation times for each stage
(planned arrival and planned departure times) but the document is still unplanned.
Customer B orders 50 pallets of product Y and asks for a delivery date in three weeks.
Currently, the capacity of your depot is 100 m³. Product Y takes up 5 m³ of your depot.
Therefore, you decide to stick to the delivery time window as closely as possible. That is why
you decide to use backward scheduling.
You can use the scheduling constraints function to consider constraints for scheduling during
VSR optimization. This allows VSR optimization to, for example, extend the transportation
plans for long trip durations so that a driver can take his required breaks. This function only
applies to vehicle resources. For example, a truck requires two days for a trip from the east
coast to the west coast of the United States. However, since the driver must take breaks
along the way, a longer trip duration must be scheduled.
Resource Availability
Resource availability is considered for the following resources:
● Vehicle resources
● Calendar resources
● Handling resources
● Factory calendar
● Capacity variants
● Downtimes
● Existing activities assigned to the resource
Scheduling Strategy
Scheduling strategies are assigned in the scheduling settings in the planning profile. The
standard strategy is VSS_DEF. In the scheduling settings, you can specify the forward/
backward scheduling direction and maintain coupling/uncoupling durations.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain the planning functionalities
available in SAP TM to the client’s transportation planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Check that scheduling constraints S4TM2 are assigned to means of transport TM2-FTL.
2. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
3. Remove the planning result from the previous exercise for your freight units to customer
TM2G##-03
4. Use forward scheduling and manually create a freight order for one of your freight units to
TM2G##-03 with vehicle TM2FTL-##.
5. What is the departure date and time (loading time) at SP_1010 and what is the arrival date
and time (unloading time) at TM2G##-03?
6. Use forward scheduling and manually create a freight order for the second freight unit to
TM2G##-03 with vehicle TM2FTL-##. But this time, ignore the scheduling constraints.
7. What is the departure date and time (loading time) at SP_1010 and what is the arrival date
and time (unloading time) at TM2G##-03? Why is it different now?
8. Schedule the freight order from the previous step again, but consider scheduling
constraints and use backward scheduling this time.
9. What is the departure date and time (loading time) at SP_1010 and what is the arrival date
and time (unloading time) at TM2G##-03?
10. Can you explain the difference between the backward, forward, and consideration of
scheduling constraints?
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain the planning functionalities
available in SAP TM to the client’s transportation planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Check that scheduling constraints S4TM2 are assigned to means of transport TM2-FTL.
a) In the backend system, execute transaction SPRO and press F5.
2. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
b) Select the row with the relevant entries from the table above.
c) Choose Continue.
3. Remove the planning result from the previous exercise for your freight units to customer
TM2G##-03
a) In the Freight Unit Stages screen area, select the freight units to TM2G##-03.
c) Choose Save.
4. Use forward scheduling and manually create a freight order for one of your freight units to
TM2G##-03 with vehicle TM2FTL-##.
a) Select one freight unit to customer TM2G##-03.
5. What is the departure date and time (loading time) at SP_1010 and what is the arrival date
and time (unloading time) at TM2G##-03?
a) Select the freight order in the Road Freight Orders screen area and review the exact
scheduling in the Stages screen area by choosing Actions - Show Details.
6. Use forward scheduling and manually create a freight order for the second freight unit to
TM2G##-03 with vehicle TM2FTL-##. But this time, ignore the scheduling constraints.
a) Choose Change Planning Settings.
7. What is the departure date and time (loading time) at SP_1010 and what is the arrival date
and time (unloading time) at TM2G##-03? Why is it different now?
It is different now because in the previous step, the scheduling included the scheduling
constraints, while they are ignored in this freight order.
a) Select the freight order in the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area and review
the exact scheduling in the Stages screen area by choosing Actions - Show Details.
8. Schedule the freight order from the previous step again, but consider scheduling
constraints and use backward scheduling this time.
a) Choose Change Planning Settings.
f) Choose Scheduling.
9. What is the departure date and time (loading time) at SP_1010 and what is the arrival date
and time (unloading time) at TM2G##-03?
Note that the pick-up and delivery times vary. It is different now because in the previous
step, the scheduling has been done forward from the pick-up date and time, while in this
step, it is done backward from the delivery date and time. If the freight unit does not have
a defined end date at the delivery location, the scheduling is done backward from the
planning horizon. It is different now because in the previous step, the scheduling is
forward and ignoring the scheduling constraints, while in this step, it is backward and also
considers scheduling constraints.
a) Highlight the freight order in the Freight Orders/ Freight Bookings screen area and
review the exact scheduling in the Stages screen area by choosing Actions - Show
Details.
10. Can you explain the difference between the backward, forward, and consideration of
scheduling constraints?
Backward scheduling schedules from the delivery window into the past. Forward
scheduling schedules from the pick-up window into the future. When scheduling
constraints are considered, the duration for transportation activities is extended by the
approximate break time that truck drivers must take.
Driver Management
A driver is any person who can operate vehicles and perform transportation-related tasks as a
result of certain qualifications. Drivers are no longer maintained as resources but are defined
as business partners. Drivers can get assigned to existing freight orders and vehicle
resources. It is also possible to create freight orders to which the system assigns drivers
automatically as soon as they are created. This function is available only for road freight
orders and trucks.
One or more drivers can be assigned to an existing freight order or to the individual
transportation stages of an existing freight order. In a driver team, the individual drivers take
turns to drive. The person who is not driving sleeps.
A prerequisite of this process is that drivers are created as business partners with business
partner role TM Labor Resource. The following are the properties of the driver:
● Home location
● Org unit
● Validity period
● Absences (for example, sickness, vacation)
● Non-working times (for example, Monday – Friday)
● Offered qualifications
● Last planned location and availability time
In freight order customizing, you can define the following settings related to drivers:
● Settings can be changed in freight order
● Number of required drivers
● Driver assignment type
In the manual planning settings, you can define default truck handling settings. This defines
how the default truck of a driver is considered when assigning a driver to a freight order. You
can ignore the default truck or use the default truck if no other truck is assigned to the freight
order.
● Manual creation and change: It is possible to enter or change drivers manually in the Driver
column in the road freight order hierarchy or in the road freight order list. If specified in the
freight order type that drivers have to be assigned per transportation stage, it is possible
to enter or change drivers for individual transportation stages in the Driver column in the
road freight order hierarchy. If driver assignment has been activated in the order details
area in the layout for the transportation cockpit, it is possible to select a freight order in the
road freight order hierarchy or in the road freight order list and manually enter or change a
driver in the details for this freight order.
● Dialog box: Finally, it is possible to select a freight order in the road freight order hierarchy
or in the road freight order list and choose the Assign Driver pushbutton. A dialog box
appears in which drivers can be entered. Then, the user can decide in the dialog box
whether to replace the currently assigned drivers with new drivers or whether to add
drivers to the existing drivers.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Practice freight order scheduling
● Plan drivers to freight orders
Learning Assessment
X A Analytics
X B Map
X C Gantt Chart
X D Load Plan
Lesson 1
Plan with the VSR Optimizer 228
Exercise 14: Configure and Execute VSR Optimization 237
Exercise 15: Analyse the VSR Explanation Log 249
Lesson 2
Plan via Hubs 260
Exercise 16: Configure, Execute, and Analyze Transportation Proposals 265
UNIT OBJECTIVES
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand VSR optimization
● Execute VSR optimization
● Explain the VSR optimizer result
The transformation displayed in the figure is obviously a reduction of the driven distance.
These costs refer to the use of the dimensions of a capacity, including empty runs, during the
VSR optimization run.
For costs per quantity from the planning costs, you can specify if the system is to calculate
the costs in a distance-independent way per transportation lane or if it is to multiply them by
the distance. The system determines the costs per stage if costs are calculated in a distance-
independent way. You are not allowed to define a unit. If multiplying by the distance, the
system uses the fixed value that you have defined in the costs per quantity field.
You can define the maximum number of intermediate stops and the costs per additional stop.
The figure, Route-based Versus Destination-based Cost, illustrates the route-based and
destination-based costs as follows:
● Destination-based cost:
- Freight order (A → B → C) = Distance (A → B → C) * Cost (A → C) = 300 * 1.5 = $450.
- Freight order (A → C → B)
= Distance (A → C → B) * Cost (A → B) = 250 * 1.9 = $475.
● Route-based cost:
- Freight order (A → B → C) = Distance (A → B) * Cost (A → B) + Distance (B → C) *
Cost (B → C) = 200 * 1.9 + 100 * 1.8 = $560.
- Freight order (A → C → B) = Distance (A → C) * Cost (A → C) + Distance (C → B) *
Cost (C → B) = 150 * 1.5 + 100 * 1.8 = $405.
Route-based and destination-based distance costs can yield different results. In North
America, destination-based distance cost calculation is used frequently, whereas in Europe,
route-based distance costs are primarily used.
Optimizer Considerations
The goal of the VSR optimizer is freight unit consolidation and the creation of a cost effective
and timely route from source to destination.
VSR Goals and Objectives
● Goal: Determine a transportation plan that minimizes total costs and satisfies all
constraints.
● Decisions:
The total cost is the sum of penalty costs for non delivery, early and late delivery, and vehicle
costs for duration, distance, stops, and quantity.
Optimizer Constraints
The optimizer operates within the constraints defined in the figure, Optimizer Constraints.
The optimizer evaluates any changes in routing caused by constraints for their effect on the
scheduling and timing. It communicates any change of time or date to all tasks on that
resource or to any dependent tasks on any other resource. Considering both aspects in
parallel ensures effective planning.
The optimizer tries to assign freight units to vehicles and determine an effective delivery order
for each vehicle so that total transportation costs are minimized. It considers several
constraints and takes penalty costs into account as part of the total transportation cost.
The following penalty costs are defined in the planning profile and can be used to control the
decisions made by VSR optimization:
● Premature pick-up
● Delayed pick-up
● Premature delivery
● Delayed delivery
The optimizer calculates additional costs if the transportation plan deviates from the
requested pickup and delivery dates. This is done when using soft constraints in the pickup
and delivery time window and defining penalty costs in the planning profile.
There is a balance in the optimizer process between selecting the cheapest mode of transport
and adhering to promised delivery dates and defined pickup dates. For example, the optimizer
could decide to ship via an intermodal means of transport even if this means delivering a day
late. This is on the condition that savings made by selecting a slower means of transport
outweigh the penalty costs for delayed delivery.
Penalty Costs
The penalty cost for premature pick-up is incurred when the scheduled pickup time falls
between the earliest pickup time (hard constraint) and the allowed premature pickup (soft
constraint).
The penalty cost for delayed pick-up is incurred when the scheduled pickup time falls between
the allowed late pickup time (soft constraint) and the latest pickup time (hard constraint).
The penalty cost for premature delivery is incurred when the scheduled delivery time falls
between the earliest delivery time (hard constraint) and the allowed premature delivery time
(soft constraint).
The penalty cost for delayed delivery is incurred when the scheduled delivery time falls
between the allowed late delivery time (soft constraint) and the latest delivery time (hard
constraint).
● Forwarding orders, SAP ERP-orders, and deliveries work only with single day and time for
pick up and delivery.
● To allow more flexibility for freight consolidation and routing optimization SAP TM
Planning uses Time Windows.
● Combination of pick up and delivery definition and penalty costs controls how the
optimizer schedules within the time window.
Windows control when goods are to be picked up and delivered. VSR optimization schedules
the pickup or delivery exactly in the window defined. If there were no windows, VSR
optimization would schedule these dates to minimize the total costs.
You can also control the optimization when windows are not taken into account and goods are
picked up or delivered too early or too late.
Defining Tolerances
You can create windows by defining tolerances within which a premature or delayed pickup or
delivery is to be allowed. You specify for each tolerance if VSR optimization is to consider it a
hard, soft, or hard and soft constraint. Specifying constraints controls if VSR optimization
calculates penalty costs when the constraints are not adhered to.
The following tolerances can be defined:
● Maximum earliness
● Maximum delay
● Delay without penalty costs
● Earliness without penalty costs
The dates and times defined for the pickup and delivery in the freight unit are the basis for
calculating the tolerances. The exact time for the pick-up date or delivery date can be
considered.
● None
● Hard (acceptable dates)
● Soft (requested dates)
● Hard and soft (both)
VSR optimization takes constraints into account when it assigns freight units to capacities.
You can differentiate between hard and soft constraints:
● VSR optimization always adheres to hard constraints.
● You model soft constraints using penalty costs, for example, lateness costs that are part of
the total costs.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to configure and execute
the VSR Optimizer for automating planning processes to the client’s transportation planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create optimizer settings S4TM2-OPT-## and assign it to your planning profile S4TM2-
PLAN-##. Use planning strategy VSR_DEF and the following data:
Field Value
2. Create constraints and cost settings S4TM2-COST-## with the following values, and
assign them to your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-##:
Field Value
Currency EUR
3. In the Means-of-Transport Settings screen area of your Constraints and Costs Settings
S4TM2-COST-##, maintain the costs for your means-of-transport TM2-FTL and TM2-LTL
using the following data:
4. Select the row for means of transport TM2-FTL. Enter the following data in the Means-of-
Transport Setting Details tab:
Field Value
5. Select the row for means of transport TM2-LTL. Enter the following data in the Means-of-
Transport Setting Details tab:
Unit of Measure KG
6. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
7. Remove the planning result from the previous exercise for your freight units to customers
TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02, and TM2G##-03.
8. Create a freight order for the freight unit with volume 1,5 m3 to TM2G##-03 using the
optimizer planning function, with all available resources. Analyze the result, but do not
save.
9. Review the details of the freight order in the Overview tab. Answer the following questions
before refreshing the transaction: How many freight orders are created? Which resource
has been used? What is the duration of the transport?
10. Create a freight order(s) for all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02,
and TM2G##-03 using the optimizer planning function, with all available resources.
Analyze the result, but do not save.
11. Review the details of the freight order in the Overview tab. Answer the following questions
before refreshing the transaction: How many freight orders are created? Which resource
has been used? What is the duration of the transport? What is the maximum utilization?
12. Create a freight order(s) for all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02,
and TM2G##-03 using the optimizer planning function, with only resources TM2LTL-##.
Analyze the result, but do not save.
13. Review the details of the freight orders in the Overview tab. Answer the following questions
before refreshing the transaction: How many freight orders are created? Which resource
has been used? What is the duration of the transport? What is the maximum utilization?
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to configure and execute
the VSR Optimizer for automating planning processes to the client’s transportation planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create optimizer settings S4TM2-OPT-## and assign it to your planning profile S4TM2-
PLAN-##. Use planning strategy VSR_DEF and the following data:
Field Value
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Optimizer Settings.
e) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Planning Profile.
f) Enter the name of your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and choose Continue.
g) In the Profile Assignments area of the Planning Profile, enter the Optimizer Settings
S4TM2-OPT-##.
2. Create constraints and cost settings S4TM2-COST-## with the following values, and
assign them to your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-##:
Currency EUR
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Constraints and Costs
Settings.
e) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Planning Profile.
f) Enter the name of your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and choose Continue.
g) In the Profile Assignments area of the Planning Profile, enter the Constraints and Cost
SettingsS4TM2-COST-##.
3. In the Means-of-Transport Settings screen area of your Constraints and Costs Settings
S4TM2-COST-##, maintain the costs for your means-of-transport TM2-FTL and TM2-LTL
using the following data:
Field Value
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Constraints and Costs
Settings.
c) Choose Continue.
4. Select the row for means of transport TM2-FTL. Enter the following data in the Means-of-
Transport Setting Details tab:
5. Select the row for means of transport TM2-LTL. Enter the following data in the Means-of-
Transport Setting Details tab:
Unit of Measure KG
6. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
b) Select the row with the relevant entries from the table above.
c) Choose Continue.
7. Remove the planning result from the previous exercise for your freight units to customers
TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02, and TM2G##-03.
a) In the Freight Unit Stages screen area, select the freight units to customers
TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02, and TM2G##-03.
c) Choose Save.
8. Create a freight order for the freight unit with volume 1,5 m3 to TM2G##-03 using the
optimizer planning function, with all available resources. Analyze the result, but do not
save.
a) Select the freight unit with volume 1,5 m3 to TM2G##-03 in the Freight Unit Stages
screen area.
9. Review the details of the freight order in the Overview tab. Answer the following questions
before refreshing the transaction: How many freight orders are created? Which resource
has been used? What is the duration of the transport?
One freight order is created. It uses resource TM2-LTL-## and the duration is
approximately 1 day (loading: 10 minutes, transportation: 24h, unloading: 10 minutes).
a) In the Road Freight Orders tab, select the new freight order ($1) by choosing
Actions → Show Details.
b) Review the details of the freight order in the Overview screen area.
10. Create a freight order(s) for all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02,
and TM2G##-03 using the optimizer planning function, with all available resources.
Analyze the result, but do not save.
a) Select all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02, and TM2G##-03 in
the Freight Unit Stages screen area.
11. Review the details of the freight order in the Overview tab. Answer the following questions
before refreshing the transaction: How many freight orders are created? Which resource
has been used? What is the duration of the transport? What is the maximum utilization?
One freight order is created. It uses resource TM2-FTL-## and the duration is
approximately 6 hours (loading: 10 minutes, transportation: approx. 5,5h, unloading: 3
times 10 minutes). The maximum utilization is 72%.
a) In the Road Freight Orders tab, select the new freight order ($2) by choosing
Actions → Show Details.
b) Review the details of the freight order in the Overview screen area.
12. Create a freight order(s) for all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02,
and TM2G##-03 using the optimizer planning function, with only resources TM2LTL-##.
Analyze the result, but do not save.
a) Select all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02, and TM2G##-03 in
the Freight Unit Stages screen area.
13. Review the details of the freight orders in the Overview tab. Answer the following questions
before refreshing the transaction: How many freight orders are created? Which resource
has been used? What is the duration of the transport? What is the maximum utilization?
Three freight orders are created (one for each destination). All of them use resource TM2-
LTL-## and the duration is approximately 1 day (loading: 10 minutes, transportation: 24h,
unloading: 10 minutes) for each. The maximum utilization is 48%.
a) In the Road Freight Orders tab, select the new freight orders ($3, $4 or $5) by
choosing Actions → Show Details.
b) Review the details of the freight order in the Overview screen area.
The optimization results can be explained as follows: If only one freight unit gets
optimized, vehicle resource TM2LTL-## is the cheapest choice. If all freight units get
optimized, the best choice is to consolidate all of them into one tour for vehicle resource
TM2FTL-##. If all freight units are optimized with vehicle resource TM2LTL-## only, three
freight orders are created, because no multi-stop freight orders are allowed for resource
TM2LTL-##.
Explanation Tool
You set user parameter /SCMTMS/EXP to X to allow for the logging of the optimizer data for
optimization runs that you start interactively.
The explanation tool for VSR optimization displays the following information:
● Input for the VSR optimization run
● Results of the VSR optimization run
● Solution overview
● Freight units
● Transportation documents
● Freight bookings
● Resources
● Transportation network
● Incompatibilities
● Conditions
● Dimensions
● Parameters
Results
● Freight units
● Transportation documents
● Freight bookings
● Solution details
● Resources
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to understand and analyze
the VSR Optimizer result to the client’s transportation planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Analyze the three optimization runs using the Optimization Explanation function to
understand why the optimizer creates the results. Identify the optimization runs of the
previous exercise.
3. What is the total cost in the optimization result for the first run (with freight unit to
TM2G##-03)?
4. Review the settings responsible for this result using the Freight Unit, Resources, and
Transportation Network folders.
6. In the MTR costs folder, what is the fixed cost for TM2-LTL?
7. In the MTR Costs folder, what is the unit cost for the TM2-LTL in the MTR Variable Costs
table?
10. On the RCCF: Log Display screen, use the Explanation Tool to view the optimization results
for the second run (freight units to all customers using TM2-FTL).
11. What is the total cost in the optimization result for the second run (with freight units to all
customers using TM2-FTL)?
12. Review the settings responsible for this result using the Resources and Transportation
Network folders.
13. In the MTR costs folder, what is the fixed cost for TM2-FTL?
16. In the Solution Details folder, choose Solution Details. What is the distance in the Tr. Dist.
field?
19. On the RCCF: Log Display screen, use the Explanation Tool to view the optimization results
for the third run (freight units to all customers using TM2-LTL).
20. What is the total cost in the optimization result for the third run (freight units to all
customers using TM2-LTL)?
21. Review the settings responsible for this result using the Freight Unit, Resources, and
Transportation Network folders.
23. In the MTR costs folder, what is the fixed cost for TM2-LTL?
24. In the MTR Costs folder, what is the unit cost for the TM2-LTL in the MTR Variable Costs
table?
26. If you select all freight units, but do not specify the vehicle resource to be used, what is the
result?
27. Change the fixed costs in Constraints and Costs Settings S4TM2-COST-## for TM2-FTL to
500. That will change the result of optimization run 2.
28. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
29. Create a freight order(s) for all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02,
and TM2G##-03 using the optimizer planning function, with all available resources.
Analyze the result, but do not save.
30. Review the details of the freight orders in the Overview tab. Answer the following questions
before refreshing the transaction: How many freight orders are created? Which resource
has been used? What is the duration of the transport? What is the maximum utilization?
31. Change the fixed costs in Constraints and Costs Settings S4TM2-COST-## for TM2-FTL
back to 5. That will change the result of optimization run 2.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to understand and analyze
the VSR Optimizer result to the client’s transportation planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Analyze the three optimization runs using the Optimization Explanation function to
understand why the optimizer creates the results. Identify the optimization runs of the
previous exercise.
a) In the backend system, enter the transaction code RCC_LOG and filter by user name.
c) In the Define Filter Criteria dialog box, select User Name in the Column Set column and
use the arrows to move it to the Filter Criteria column to filter by user name.
f) Choose Enter.
3. What is the total cost in the optimization result for the first run (with freight unit to
TM2G##-03)?
The total cost can vary. The total cost is approximately 106,75 and consists of the
following elements: Fixed cost is 4 (Solution costs: Assignment costs, =costs for TM2-LTL
per capacity document: 3 and per vehicle resource: 1) and the quantity cost is 102,75
(Solution Costs: Routing Costs. Quantity cost for TM2-LTL 0,05 per kg * 2055 kg).
4. Review the settings responsible for this result using the Freight Unit, Resources, and
Transportation Network folders.
6. In the MTR costs folder, what is the fixed cost for TM2-LTL?
The fixed cost is defined as 1. You have defined the fixed cost in the planning cost settings.
a) Choose Resources → MTR Costs → MTR Fix Costs and Penalty Factors.
7. In the MTR Costs folder, what is the unit cost for the TM2-LTL in the MTR Variable Costs
table?
The unit cost you defined in the planning cost settings is 0,05 per KG.
The total cost is 1 + 3 + 2055 * 0,05 = 1 + 3 + 102,75 = 106,75. However, with the additional
consideration of earliness and lateness, this may vary at different times of the day.
10. On the RCCF: Log Display screen, use the Explanation Tool to view the optimization results
for the second run (freight units to all customers using TM2-FTL).
a) Select the second row with the optimization run.
11. What is the total cost in the optimization result for the second run (with freight units to all
customers using TM2-FTL)?
The total cost is approximately 436,89. However, the cost may be different in your
system. The total costs consists of the following elements: Fixed cost is 15 (Solution costs:
Assignment costs, =costs for TM2-LTL per capacity document: 10 and per vehicle
resource: 5) and the distance cost is 321,89 (Solution Costs: Routing Costs. Distance cost
for TM2-FTL 1 per km * 321,89 km; the distance and therefore distance cost may vary due
to GIS settings ) and stopp off cost is 100 (Solution Costs: Routing Costs. cost per
additional stop for TM2-FTL 50 * 2).
12. Review the settings responsible for this result using the Resources and Transportation
Network folders.
13. In the MTR costs folder, what is the fixed cost for TM2-FTL?
The fixed cost for TM2-FTL is defined as 5. You defined this in the planning cost settings.
a) Choose Input → Resources → MTR Costs → MTR Fix Costs and Penalty Factors.
The stop-off cost is 50. You defined this in the planning cost settings.
1 per km.
16. In the Solution Details folder, choose Solution Details. What is the distance in the Tr. Dist.
field?
The total transportation distance is 321,89. However, the distance may be different based
on your GIS settings.
19. On the RCCF: Log Display screen, use the Explanation Tool to view the optimization results
for the third run (freight units to all customers using TM2-LTL).
a) Select the first row with the optimization run.
20. What is the total cost in the optimization result for the third run (freight units to all
customers using TM2-LTL)?
The total cost is approximately 729,25. However, with the additional consideration of
earliness and lateness, this may vary at different times of the day.
21. Review the settings responsible for this result using the Freight Unit, Resources, and
Transportation Network folders.
23. In the MTR costs folder, what is the fixed cost for TM2-LTL?
The fixed cost is defined as 1.You defined it in the planning cost settings.
a) Choose Resources → MTR Costs → MTR Fix Costs and Penalty Factors.
24. In the MTR Costs folder, what is the unit cost for the TM2-LTL in the MTR Variable Costs
table?
The unit cost you defined in the planning cost settings is 0,05 per KG.
The total cost is 1+ 3*3 + 14385*0,05) = 1 + 9 + 719,25 = 729,25. Any remaining value may
come from the earliness/lateness (Solution Costs: Scheduling Costs).
26. If you select all freight units, but do not specify the vehicle resource to be used, what is the
result?
One freight orders using TM2-FTL will be the result, because this is the cheaper variant
according to the current system setup (optimization run 2).
27. Change the fixed costs in Constraints and Costs Settings S4TM2-COST-## for TM2-FTL to
500. That will change the result of optimization run 2.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Constraints and Costs
Settings .
c) Choose Continue.
d) Change the fixed costs (per capacity document) for TM2-FTL to 500.
28. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
b) Select the row with the relevant entries from the table above.
c) Choose Continue.
29. Create a freight order(s) for all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02,
and TM2G##-03 using the optimizer planning function, with all available resources.
Analyze the result, but do not save.
a) Select all six freight units to customers TM2G##-01, TM2G##-02, and TM2G##-03 in
the Freight Unit Stages screen area.
30. Review the details of the freight orders in the Overview tab. Answer the following questions
before refreshing the transaction: How many freight orders are created? Which resource
has been used? What is the duration of the transport? What is the maximum utilization?
Three freight orders are created (one for each destination). All of them use resource TM2-
LTL-## and the duration is approximately 1 day (loading: 10 minutes, transportation: 24h,
unloading: 10 minutes) for each. The maximum utilization is 48%.
a) In the Road Freight Orders tab, select the new freight orders ($3, $4 or $5) by
choosing Actions → Show Details.
b) Review the details of the freight order in the Overview screen area.
31. Change the fixed costs in Constraints and Costs Settings S4TM2-COST-## for TM2-FTL
back to 5. That will change the result of optimization run 2.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Constraints and Costs
Settings.
c) Choose Continue.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand VSR optimization
● Execute VSR optimization
● Explain the VSR optimizer result
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Configure a planning scenario with hubs
● Configure and execute transportation proposals
Pooled Distribution
In the pooled distribution process, the SAP SAP TM system determines whether it is more
cost-effective to deliver freight directly to the customer via truckload or using a pool location
to consolidate freight.
In the pool distribution process, a shipper wants to send goods from a shipping point to
customers using pool or hub locations for consolidation.
Animation: Scenarios
For more information on Scenarios , please view the animation in the lesson Plan
via Hubs, online in the SAP Learning Hub.
The following figure lists master-data objects that are required. All the master data concepts
are covered in Unit 2. We will revise transshipment locations here as they are important for
this concept.
Multi-Stage Transportation
The VSR optimizer evaluates the various possibilities for transporting the selected freight
units. It then opts for pooled distribution whenever it is cost-effective to do so. In a standard
pooled distribution process, the VSR optimizer creates one freight order to transport the
cargo to the transshipment location. It then creates a second freight order to transport the
cargo out of the transshipment location.
Other scenarios are also possible. Multiple freight orders allow splitting up of resource
assignment, carrier assignment, and other downstream planning and execution activities.
Transportation Proposals
A transportation proposal defines how a freight unit can be transported through a
transportation network (which is defined by locations, transshipment locations,
transportation zones, transportation lanes, vehicle resources, schedules, and bookings). For a
given transportation demand (freight unit), the system determines a set of alternative
transportation proposals. The transportation proposal functionality serves the following
purposes:
● To help the user identify the different transportation options for a freight unit. In a complex
network, in which end-to-end transportation requires several stages, transportation
proposals are an easy way to make the different options transparent. Transportation
proposals can differ in relation to routing, means of transport, and time required. Each of
these variables can increase or reduce costs, and the proposals thus provide the planner
responsible with the necessary information to make an appropriate choice.
● To create the stages upfront, for example, to choose the option of ocean transport,
because the customer has placed their order well in advance and this is the cheapest
choice. In this use case, no freight orders are created based on the proposal result, but
only the stage information is stored. This allows the task of planning the different stages to
be assigned to different planners and to be completed at different times.
● Route variation
● Carrier variation
● Departure date variation
● Time relevance
● Cost variance
Preferences can be weighed against each other on the basis of relevance: none, low, medium,
or high.
When you use the optimizer to generate a transportation proposal, you can specify whether
the system is to accept only the proposed route or the proposed route and associated freight
documents. In this field, you have the following options:
● Save Route Only: Only the freight unit stages are saved when the system accepts the route
that you have chosen.
● Save Route and Freight Documents: Freight unit stages and freight documents are saved
by the system.
● Not Defined: You can specify on a case-by-case basis whether the system is to save only
freight unit stages or also the associated freight documents.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to configure and execute
the Transportation Proposal for automating planning processes to the client’s transportation
planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
2. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
3. Only required if you have saved the planning result in a previous exercise: Remove the
planning result from the previous exercise for your freight unit to customer TM2G##-01
with gross volume 3 M3.
5. Create a transportation proposal for the freight unit with volume 3 m3 to TM2G##-01.
Analyze the result, but do not save.
11. How can you identify which solution ID (Sol. ID) corresponds to which proposal?
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support truck-load and less-than-truck-load
planning scenarios. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to configure and execute
the Transportation Proposal for automating planning processes to the client’s transportation
planner.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
c) Choose Continue.
2. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
b) Select the row with the relevant entries from the table above.
c) Choose Continue.
3. Only required if you have saved the planning result in a previous exercise: Remove the
planning result from the previous exercise for your freight unit to customer TM2G##-01
with gross volume 3 M3.
a) In the Freight Unit Stages screen area, select the freight unit to customer TM2G##-01
with gross volume 3 M3.
c) Choose Save.
5. Create a transportation proposal for the freight unit with volume 3 m3 to TM2G##-01.
Analyze the result, but do not save.
a) Select the freight unit with volume 3 m3 to TM2G##-01 in the Freight Unit Stages
screen area.
Four different transportation proposals are shown with different costs and routings.
Option 1: SP_1010 to TMCD-HANNOVER using TM2-POOL and continuing to TM2G##-01
using TM2-FTL. Option 2: SP_1010 to TMCD-HANNOVER using TM2-FTL and continuing
to TM2G##-01 using TM2-FTL. Option 3: SP_1010 direct to TM2G##-01 using TM2-FTL.
Option 4: SP_1010 direct to TM2G##-01 using TM2-LTL.
The direct option from SP_1010 to TM2G##-01 using TM2-LTL has the longest
transportation duration (24:00 hours).
c) In the Define Filter Criteria dialog box, select User Name in the Column Set column and
use the arrows to move it to the Filter Criteria column to filter by user name.
f) Choose Enter.
11. How can you identify which solution ID (Sol. ID) corresponds to which proposal?
You can identify which solution ID (Sol. ID) corresponds to which proposal by comparing
the transportation proposals in the transportation cockpit with the freight orders per Sol.
ID.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Configure a planning scenario with hubs
● Configure and execute transportation proposals
Learning Assessment
X True
X False
2. Which of the following items is not a constraint considered by the VSR optimizer?
Choose the correct answer.
X A Vehicle capacity
X B Driver experience
X C Handling resources
X D Depot location
3. What information does the explanation tool for VSR optimization display?
Choose the correct answers.
X B Solution details
X D Solution overview
X True
X False
X A Route variation
X C Driver preference
X D Incompatibilities
Lesson 1
Carrier Selection 274
Exercise 17: Execute Carrier Selection 287
Lesson 2
Load Planning 295
Exercise 18: Configure and Execute Load Planning 301
Lesson 3
Short-Cut Process 309
Exercise 19: Configure and Execute the Short-Cut Process 311
UNIT OBJECTIVES
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Define transportation allocations and business shares
● Subcontract freight orders
Carrier Selection
Once a freight order has been built, a shipper needs to choose (and communicate with) the
business partner responsible for moving the product. We will refer to this as carrier selection.
The carrier is the business partner that you subcontract the freight order to. The carrier can
be different from the executing carrier, which is another business partner role that you can
assign to your freight order, if the carrier itself subcontracts the execution of the freight order
to a third party. That way, you have the option to differentiate between the party you
contracted with and the party actually executing the freight move.
Carrier Selection
Carrier selection is used to assign a suitable carrier to your sub-contractable business
documents (for example, freight orders), either manually or automatically. Carrier selection
can be done for freight bookings and also via report /SCMTMS/PLN_OPT. The aim is to find a
carrier with the lowest costs under consideration of the defined constraints.
In manual carrier selection, you manually assign the required carrier to your business
documents. If you have configured a check against transportation allocations, the system
takes this into account and checks transportation capacities (transportation allocations) that
you have defined for the individual carriers. If, during the allocation, the system finds relevant
transportation allocations without capacity or that certain rules are violated by the allocation,
warning messages appear. When you want to take business shares into account for carrier
selection that you have to define this in the transportation lane and carrier selection settings.
A separate optimization is available for automatic carrier selection. It takes selected
optimization options into account when determining the most cost-effective carrier for all
business documents that you have selected. If none of the carriers are available, the system
does not assign any carrier to the relevant business documents.
The figure shows which statuses change during the subcontracting process.
Strategy Options
During planning in SAP TM, strategies are defined which are optimization options for carrier
selection. The system takes these strategies into account during the automatic carrier
selection process.
You define strategies either in the transportation lane or in carrier selection settings. Initially,
the system considers the appropriate transportation lane for each freight order. This allows it
to consider different settings in one run. Taking strategies and settings into consideration, the
optimizer then creates a carrier ranking list containing the different carrier options. The
strategy options supported are as follows:
● Cost and Priority
● Business Share
● Transportation Allocation
● Continuous Move
Note:
When we speak of internal costs here, we are not speaking of real-world costs.
Internal costs are used for weighting only, as part of the carrier selection process.
Transportation Allocations
Transportation allocations allow companies to assign defined quantities of capacity to certain
business partners. This includes set minimum or maximum capacity restrictions that regulate
how much business is allowed with a certain carrier in a certain region for a certain means of
transport. A separate business object is used to model these allocations.
Often, firm relationships exist with carriers in the form of contracts. These contracts can
guarantee that an amount of business is allocated to a carrier, which if not met, results in
penalties. SAP TM has the tools to track these relationships or, alternatively, divide up
business between different carriers.
An allocation represents the planned capacities for a carrier and a trade lane during a validity
period. The capacities can be defined for multiple dimensions, such as volume, weight, and
20-foot equivalent units, as well as a sequence of time periods of the same granularity, which
are frequently called (time) buckets. For each dimension and time period, the allocation
captures the already-consumed portion of the maintained capacity. All freight documents
matching the carrier, trade lane, and validity period consume the corresponding buckets of
the allocation. As soon as a freight document is created, the matching allocations are
determined asynchronously and updated according to the freight document’s capacity. The
consumed quantities are visible in the allocations and allow tracking of the capacities and
their utilizations.
The following are examples of transport allocations:
● A carrier commits to at least 25 shipments or truckloads from Nashville each day.
However, for business reasons, the availability changes each day.
● A carrier normally provides two trucks per day from Dayton, Ohio. For business reasons,
the carrier is able to offer, on Tuesday and Friday only, five trucks to the shipper.
● A carrier can include additional capacity to the existing number of shipments by truck. For
example, a carrier could add five additional trucks during the week between Tuesday and
Thursday.
Carrier capacity can be defined for any geographical level in arbitrary dimension. When
defining the allocation, the trade lane can be specified as follows:
● Along: Both source location/zone and destination location/zone can be specified
● From: Source location/zone only
● Within: Using zone hierarchy
● To: Destination location/zone only
● Inbound: Destination zone is specified
● Outbound: Source zone is specified
● During carrier selection either using optimizer or manual planning, the allocation can be
checked
● During tendering, the allocation can be checked
● Use Attributes: This allows you to create multiple buckets for the same period of time. The
buckets consider different attribute combinations based on shipping type, contract basis,
or handling code. Using handling codes for the upper deck and lower deck of an airplane,
you can define two buckets with individual capacities, one for the upper deck and one for
the lower deck.
● Use Carrier Selection: This defines whether allocations of this type are considered by
carrier selection.
● Carrier Selection Unit of Measure: If carrier selection is activated, you can specify the
allocation’s unit of measure that is considered for carrier selection. You may define
allocations with volume, weight, and TEU quantities and choose carrier selection
considering the TEU capacities.
● Update Quantity Automatically: This defines whether a newly created allocation or bucket
gets an automatic update of its consumed quantities.
● Bucket Overlapping: A freight document may cover multiple buckets of the allocation.
Using this parameter, you can define whether all covered buckets get consumed by the
freight document or only the first covered bucket gets consumed. This parameter should
not be changed if allocations already exist in your productive system because the buckets
will contain data according to both consumption modes, which makes the quantities hard
to interpret.
● BW Relevance: This specifies whether the allocation type is relevant for analytics based on
SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW).
Business Shares
Selecting Carriers Based on Business Share
Like transportation allocations, business shares make use of trade lanes. With SAP TM, you
can define such target shares per carrier as a business share for a trade lane and means of
transport or mode of transport on a daily, weekly, monthly,quarterly, or yearly basis.
When defining the business share context, you create the business share buckets. The
percentage of business share a carrier can have for these individual buckets is the actual
business share a carrier is allowed to have. There are different types of bucket available
during business share creation. They are yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily.
Example One
Carrier A can have a weekly bucket of 75% of the business share on the lane between
Hamburg and Frankfurt between the validity periods March 1 2015 to 31 May 2015. In the
same context, Carrier B can have a weekly bucket of 25% defined.
Tolerances and penalty costs can be defined for business shares. As long as business shares
are within the tolerance limits, the cost calculations during carrier ranking are not affected.
Tolerances are always defined in percentages (%). If the total business share of the carrier
exceeds the defined tolerances, either shortfall or over, a penalty applies.
The shortage penalty costs are added to all carriers, other than the one selected. The excess
penalty costs are added to the carrier under consideration. Penalties are maintained as
numeric values in the business share. This number is multiplied by the deviation percentage
to arrive at the penalty cost.
It only makes sense to use business shares if you have defined penalty costs. It is
recommended to also always define tolerances to give the optimizer a certain amount of
leeway.
Example Two
There is a penalty of 1000 defined in the business share. An excess tolerance of 10% is also
defined. During business share calculation, if the excess is 12%, the excess liable for penalty is
2%. This 2 is multiplied by 1000 to arrive at the total excess penalty costs of 2000.
Note:
When calculating the total costs for a carrier, if you are working with TCM costs,
there will be a currency assigned to the costs. To assign a currency to business
share penalty costs, go to Carrier Selection Settings → Advanced
Settings → Common Currency.
For example, if you are working with carriers from multiple geographic locations
with multiple currencies to arrive at the correct ranking, the system uses the
common currency (maintained in the Carrier Selection Settings) for all its
calculations. The currency displayed in the carrier ranking list is always the local
currency of the carrier (maintained in the freight agreement).
All FORs in the business share context are selected for the business share penalty
calculations, though these FORs are not selected during the planning run.
For example, assume in a business share context there are two carriers, A and B.
There are no tolerances defined. Carrier A is awarded a 60% business share and
Carrier B a 40% business share. There are already 10 freight orders awarded, of
which Carrier A is assigned six and Carrier B is assigned four.
Now let us perform carrier selection for the eleventh FOR. If Carrier B is assigned
this FOR, Carrier A will have a shortfall of business share, and the penalty cost for
the shortfall will be charged to Carrier B, on top of the usual costs determined
during carrier selection.
If Carrier A is assigned the eleventh FOR, Carrier B will have a shortfall of business
share, and the penalty cost will be charged to carrier A, on top of the usual costs
determined during carrier selection. Both options are evaluated by the system and
the ranking is done accordingly.
The carrier selection process is predominantly used in land transportation. However, the
carrier selection process can also be triggered for freight bookings using the background
report or from the freight booking UI. In contrast to carrier selection for freight orders, carrier
selection for freight bookings will only consider transportation allocations – no business
shares or continuous moves.
The input data for carrier selection is one or more freight orders (selected interactively in a
work-list) or a selection profile by which the freight orders that need to have a carrier assigned
are determined. In addition, carrier selection settings are required to specify exactly how
carrier selection should be carried out. These settings control the carrier selection process
and determine which constraints are used and how. Therefore, configuring carrier selection
settings for automatic carrier selection is mandatory.
The following fields are the most important to influence the carrier selection process:
● Check Incompatibilities: Incompatibilities are checked only if this checkbox has been
selected.
● Incompatibility Settings: If the Check Incompatibilities checkbox is selected,
incompatibility settings define which incompatibility definitions need to be adhered to.
● Type of Carrier Selection Settings: This parameter defines the purpose of carrier selection.
Available options are General Carrier Selection, Carrier Selection for Tendering, and
Carrier Selection for Direct Shipment.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support automatic carrier selection. Sue,
the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to set up SAP TM such that carriers are selected
automatically for a certain transportation lane, based on priorities and considering business
shares.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Determine the trade lane between shipping point SP_1010 and transportation zone DE-
NRW for means of transport TM2-FTL.
2. Review business shares for carriers TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11 valid this year for the
trade lane identified in the previous step.
3. What is the target business share for carrier TM-CAR-10? What is the positive and
negative tolerance defined for this business share?
4. What is the current load and current share for carrier TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11? Note
down these figures.
5. Create carrier selection settings S4TM2-CARSEL-## and assign them to your planning
profile S4TM2-PLAN-##. Carrier selection shall consider business shares and be based on
priorities. The best carrier is to be assigned after the carrier selection run. For the other
values, maintain the values from the following table:
Field Value
Strategy Priority
Optimizer Runtime 6
6. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
7. If you have saved the planning result in a previous exercise, you need to remove it:
Remove the planning result for your freight units to customer TM2G##-03
8. Create a freight order from the shipping point SP_1010 to customer TM2G##-03 using
vehicle resource TM2FTL-## by assigning both freight units to this customer to the
vehicle resource. Save your planning result.
9. Which carrier is assigned to your freight order? What does the carrier ranking look like?
10. Execute carrier selection for your freight order and save the result. Make a note of your
freight order number.
11. Which carrier is assigned to your freight order? What does the carrier ranking look like?
12. Review business shares for carriers TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11 valid this year for the
trade lane identified in step 1 of this exercise.
13. What is the current load and current share for carrier TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11? Note
down these figures and compare with the result of step 4 of this exercise.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM to support automatic carrier selection. Sue,
the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to set up SAP TM such that carriers are selected
automatically for a certain transportation lane, based on priorities and considering business
shares.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Determine the trade lane between shipping point SP_1010 and transportation zone DE-
NRW for means of transport TM2-FTL.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, in the search field, type Edit Trade Lane to open the
trade lane app.
● Source: SP_1010
● Destination: DE-NRW
d) Choose GO.
2. Review business shares for carriers TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11 valid this year for the
trade lane identified in the previous step.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Planning → Edit Business Share.
b) In the Business Share field, use the value help (F4) and select the business share valid
for this calendar year for the trade lane identified in the previous step.
3. What is the target business share for carrier TM-CAR-10? What is the positive and
negative tolerance defined for this business share?
The target business share for carrier TM-CAR-10 is 50%. The negative and positive
tolerances are both 20%.
4. What is the current load and current share for carrier TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11? Note
down these figures.
The current load and current share for carrier TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11 varies.
5. Create carrier selection settings S4TM2-CARSEL-## and assign them to your planning
profile S4TM2-PLAN-##. Carrier selection shall consider business shares and be based on
priorities. The best carrier is to be assigned after the carrier selection run. For the other
values, maintain the values from the following table:
Field Value
Strategy Priority
Optimizer Runtime 6
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Carrier Selection
Settings.
e) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Planning Profile.
f) Enter the name of your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and choose Continue.
g) In the Profile Assignments area of the Planning Profile, enter the Carrier Selection
SettingsS4TM2-CARSEL-##.
6. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile and selection profiles for freight
units and freight orders. Use transportation cockpit layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
b) Select the row with the relevant entries from the table above.
c) Choose Continue.
7. If you have saved the planning result in a previous exercise, you need to remove it:
Remove the planning result for your freight units to customer TM2G##-03
a) In the Freight Unit Stages screen area, select the freight units to TM2G##-03.
c) Choose Save.
8. Create a freight order from the shipping point SP_1010 to customer TM2G##-03 using
vehicle resource TM2FTL-## by assigning both freight units to this customer to the
vehicle resource. Save your planning result.
a) Select both freight unit to customer TM2G##-03 in the Freight Unit Stages screen
area.
d) Choose Save.
9. Which carrier is assigned to your freight order? What does the carrier ranking look like?
No carrier is assigned to your freight order and the carrier ranking is empty.
a) In the Road Freight Orders screen area, check the Carrier column for your freight
order. It will be empty.
b) In the Road Freight Orders screen area, click in Actions → Details for your freight order.
c) In the bottom screen area, open the Carrier Ranking tab. It will be empty.
10. Execute carrier selection for your freight order and save the result. Make a note of your
freight order number.
a) In the Road Freight Orders, select your freight order.
c) Choose Save.
11. Which carrier is assigned to your freight order? What does the carrier ranking look like?
Carrier TM-CAR-10 or TM-CAR-11 will be assigned to your freight order and the carrier
ranking will include these two carriers.
a) In the Road Freight Orders screen area, check the Carrier column for your freight
order.
b) In the Road Freight Orders screen area, click in Actions → Details for your freight order.
12. Review business shares for carriers TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11 valid this year for the
trade lane identified in step 1 of this exercise.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Planning → Edit Business Share.
b) In the Business Share field, use the value help (F4) and select the business share valid
for this calendar year for the trade lane identified in the previous step.
13. What is the current load and current share for carrier TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11? Note
down these figures and compare with the result of step 4 of this exercise.
The current load and current share for carrier TM-CAR-10 and TM-CAR-11 varies.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Define transportation allocations and business shares
● Subcontract freight orders
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Configure the load planning process
Load Planning
During truck planning, rules are applied to fulfill legal restrictions. For example, certain axle
loads may not be exceeded. In addition, a certain loading sequence of the goods to be
transported optimizes the transportation plan. Load planning concerns the loading of goods
to be transported in an optimized manner into a transportation unit, be it be a truck, trailer, or
container resource.
You can plan the loading space of box trucks, trailers, semi-trailers, and containers in the
transportation cockpit or directly in one of the following business documents:
● Road freight order
● Trailer unit
● Container unit
Planning is carried out at the level of business document items. Load planning returns an
approximate calculation of how the available loading space can be optimally used, taking into
account the maximum axle loads and the maximum weight of a vehicle resource. The
calculation is based on the master data that you enter for the resource.
In automatic load planning, also known as load optimization, the load optimizer creates a load
plan for your business document. It considers capacity restrictions in terms of the height,
width, weight, and length of the loading space. For vehicle resources with two axle groups, it
also considers the maximum axle load.
Vehicle Capacity Attributes
● VSR:
- One-dimensional, for example, volume or mass: Up to eight dimensions.
● VSO:
- Three-dimensional, for example, pallet or box size: Visual representation.
● Vehicle capacity is maintained in vehicle resource master data.
In vehicle scheduling and routing (VSR) planning, SAP TM considers the resource capacities
of weight and volume. However, the new load planning function requires much more
information on master data level. Not only are weight and volume limitations considered more
precisely, but weight distribution of axles is also planned. This is required to fulfill legal
restrictions when creating a load plan.
Within the resource master data, on the Physical Properties tab, there are additional capacity
and resource configuration fields to maintain. You can specify attributes regarding dimension,
weight, and type of resource. One specific attribute is the definition of axle groups.
The table, Box Truck, provides a detailed explanation of the elements of the figure, Vehicle
Types Example 1: Box Truck.
The table, Semi-Trailer, provides a detailed explanation of the elements of the figure, Vehicle
Types Example 2: Semi-Trailer.
● Length
● Height
● Width
● Gross Weight
Load planning settings are assigned in the planning profile. By assigning a planning profile in
the freight order type, different load planning settings can be used for different freight order
types.
You can define different rules for the lower and upper deck of double-deck trailers.
The combination of stack, row, and line indicates the exact position of each package loaded
onto the resource. Packages loaded on top of each other form a stack. Packages loaded next
to each other from left to right form a row. The first row of a deck is always placed towards the
start of the loading space. Packages loaded one behind the other from front to back form a
line. The first line of a deck is always on the left side of the deck in the direction of travel.
Rules for Load Planning
Load Planning
The load plan is the result of load planning. It provides you with an overview of how the loading
space available for transporting a business document is used currently.
In both the transportation cockpit and in the business document, you can display the
complete load plan as a 3D load plan or a table load plan of business document items. In the
3D load plan, you can show or hide individual objects as well as entire rows, columns, or
stacks and fill them with different colors. Furthermore, you can show and hide gridlines in
your decks in the 3D load plan.
If items cannot be loaded, the load plan includes information on the loading sequence and the
exact position on the vehicle. In addition to the load plan, a load distribution is available for
each axle and the complete vehicle. This document proves that the load plan fulfills legal
requirements. An additional tab holds statistical indicators such as the used volume and area.
The Load Plan
The load plan contains the following information about the business document item:
● Resource
● Item in the resource
● Loading sequence
● Row, stack, and level in the loading space
● Gross weight
● Height, width, and length
● Stackability
Business Example
As a transportation planner, you need to generate load plans that adhere to defined load
planning rules. You are tasked to demonstrate that process and create corresponding master
data.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. What is the maximum allowed axle weight on the first axle group of vehicle resource TM2-
LOADPLAN?
2. What is the axle type and empty weight of the second axle group of vehicle resource TM2-
LOADPLAN?
3. What is the maximum length, width, and height of the loading space of vehicle resource
TM2-LOADPLAN?
5. Create load planning settings S4TM2-LOAD-##. Assign the load planning rule 1000 (stack
height ascending in driving direction) with priority 1 (high), load planning rule 2165
(maximize floor space usage) with priority 2 and load planning rule 4000 (US Federal
Bridge Formula). Assign the load planning settings to your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-
##. Use the data in the following table:
Runtime 10
6. In the transportation cockpit, create a freight order from shipping point SP_1010 to
customer TM2G##-01 with resource TM2-LOADPLAN for the freight unit that you have
created in the exercise "Configure Package Building and Create Packages based on Sales
Orders" (you can identify this freight unit by its customer PO number PB-## in the query).
Enter the transportation cockpit via the Selection Criteria start screen. Select resource
TM2-LOADPLAN, planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-##, and transportation cockpit layout
LAYOUT-LOAD. Manually drag and drop the freight unit to resource TM2-LOADPLAN.
8. Review the load plan. What is the load planning status at the source location SP3100?
9. Review the load distribution. What is the total utilization? What is the utilization on the first
axle group?
11. What is the floor size of the cargo body? How much floor space is used?
12. What is the volume of the truck and how much of the volume has been used?
Business Example
As a transportation planner, you need to generate load plans that adhere to defined load
planning rules. You are tasked to demonstrate that process and create corresponding master
data.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. What is the maximum allowed axle weight on the first axle group of vehicle resource TM2-
LOADPLAN?
2. What is the axle type and empty weight of the second axle group of vehicle resource TM2-
LOADPLAN?
The axle type of the second axle group is single axle. Its empty weight is 6000 kg.
3. What is the maximum length, width, and height of the loading space of vehicle resource
TM2-LOADPLAN?
The internal length is 6m, the internal width is 2,40m, and the internal height is 2,50m.
b) In the Search Resources screen area, search for resource TM2-LOADPLAN by entering
TM2-LOADPLAN in the Resource field and choosing Go.
d) Close all screen areas except for the 3D Model screen area.
5. Create load planning settings S4TM2-LOAD-##. Assign the load planning rule 1000 (stack
height ascending in driving direction) with priority 1 (high), load planning rule 2165
(maximize floor space usage) with priority 2 and load planning rule 4000 (US Federal
Bridge Formula). Assign the load planning settings to your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-
##. Use the data in the following table:
Runtime 10
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Load Planning
Settings.
f) In the Load Planning Rule field, enter 2165. In the Priority column, choose 2.
j) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Edit Planning Profile.
k) Enter the name of your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and choose Continue.
l) In the Profile Assignments area of the Planning Profile, enter the Load Planning
SettingsS4TM2-LOAD-##.
6. In the transportation cockpit, create a freight order from shipping point SP_1010 to
customer TM2G##-01 with resource TM2-LOADPLAN for the freight unit that you have
created in the exercise "Configure Package Building and Create Packages based on Sales
Orders" (you can identify this freight unit by its customer PO number PB-## in the query).
Enter the transportation cockpit via the Selection Criteria start screen. Select resource
TM2-LOADPLAN, planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-##, and transportation cockpit layout
LAYOUT-LOAD. Manually drag and drop the freight unit to resource TM2-LOADPLAN.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Logistics Integration → Order Integration (Worklist).
c) Click on the column header for Customer PO Number and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your PO number PB-## and choose OK.
f) Select the row with your freight unit/sales order and choose the Transportation
Cockpit button.
j) In the screen area for Settings, enter Page Layout for Transportation Cockpit is
LAYOUT-LOAD.
k) Choose Continue.
l) Select the freight unit in the Freight Unit Stages screen area and drag and drop it to the
row with vehicle resource TM2-LOADPLAN in the Trucks screen area.
b) In the Road Freight Orders screen area, choose Create Load Plan.
8. Review the load plan. What is the load planning status at the source location SP3100?
The load planning status is Invalidated, because the load plan has just been changed.
a) Select the freight order in the Road Freight Orders screen area and choose
Actions → Show Details.
b) In the Overview tab, in the Load Plan Status column, the load planning status is
displayed.
9. Review the load distribution. What is the total utilization? What is the utilization on the first
axle group?
The total utilization is 43%. The utilization on the first axle group is 45%.
a) Select the freight order in the Road Freight Orders screen area and choose
Actions → Show Details.
a) Select the freight order in the Road Freight Orders screen area and choose
Actions → Show Details.
11. What is the floor size of the cargo body? How much floor space is used?
The floor size of the cargo body is 14,4m² and the used floor of the cargo body is 3,84m²
(26,7%).
a) Select the freight order in the Road Freight Orders screen area and choose
Actions → Show Details.
12. What is the volume of the truck and how much of the volume has been used?
The volume of the truck is 36m³ and 1,44m³ has been used.
a) Select the freight order in the Road Freight Orders screen area and choose
Actions → Show Details.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Configure the load planning process
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand, configure, and execute the short-cut process
Short-Cut Process
Creating a freight order directly from the FUBR is called the short-cut planning process
because, in this case, freight units as separate business documents are omitted, and
additional planning steps are not required because the freight order is created right away.
The purpose of the short-cut process is to skip any planning activities, because these may not
be required in certain scenarios. For example, if the sales orders that are received by a
company already state the required truck size, the freight order could be created directly
from the transportation demand (in this example, a sale order). Technically, this is done
during freight unit building by selecting a freight order type instead of a freight unit type.
Thus, freight units are omitted in the scenarios where transportation demand/requirement
exactly matches the to-be-created transportation document.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to use the short-cut process for orders with a gross weight between
15to and 20to. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to configure this process.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a freight order type F6##. Carrier Selection shall be executed when freight orders
of this type are created and the carrier selection settings S4TM2-CARSEL-## shall be
used for this purpose. The default means of transport should be TM2-FTL. In addition, use
the following data.
Field Value
Field Value
2. Create a freight unit building rule FUBR-SC-##. The freight unit building rule should use
process controller strategy FUB_AUTO and create freight orders of type F6##. Item splits
should be allowed and default routes should not be applied. In addition, use the following
data:
Gross Volume M3 80
3. Check how this freight unit building rule is selected in condition FUBR_S4TM2.
Note:
Do NOT make any changes to condition FUBR_S4TM2.
4. In which case does freight unit building rule FUBR-SC-## get selected?
5. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-02 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 25 PCs of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is TM-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
6. Check whether a freight order has been created for your sales order by filtering the All
Order-Based Freight Orders query for your document type F6##.
8. In the Document Flow tab, what is the predecessor business document for this freight
order?
10. Which means of transport is used in this freight order? Do you know why?
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to use the short-cut process for orders with a gross weight between
15to and 20to. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to configure this process.
Note:
Always replace ## with the two-digit number assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a freight order type F6##. Carrier Selection shall be executed when freight orders
of this type are created and the carrier selection settings S4TM2-CARSEL-## shall be
used for this purpose. The default means of transport should be TM2-FTL. In addition, use
the following data.
Field Value
Field Value
2. Create a freight unit building rule FUBR-SC-##. The freight unit building rule should use
process controller strategy FUB_AUTO and create freight orders of type F6##. Item splits
should be allowed and default routes should not be applied. In addition, use the following
data:
Gross Volume M3 80
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Profiles and Settings → Create Freight Unit Building
Rule.
3. Check how this freight unit building rule is selected in condition FUBR_S4TM2.
Note:
Do NOT make any changes to condition FUBR_S4TM2.
4. In which case does freight unit building rule FUBR-SC-## get selected?
FUBR-SC-## gets selected for Buyer Origin Document values TM-## and gross weights in
the range of 15000 kg to 20000 kg.
a) In the decision table, identify the row with the value FUBR-SC-## in column FUB Rule
(green column).
5. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-02 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 25 PCs of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is TM-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Sales Documents → Create Sales Orders.
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
c) Choose Continue.
● Sold-to-Party: TM2G##-02
● Material: TM-MAT-01
● Order Quantity: 25
e) Choose Save.
6. Check whether a freight order has been created for your sales order by filtering the All
Order-Based Freight Orders query for your document type F6##.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Logistics Integration → Order Integration (Worklist).
c) Click on the column header for Document Type and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your document type F6## and choose OK.
8. In the Document Flow tab, what is the predecessor business document for this freight
order?
The predecessor document of this freight order is the sales order created in step 5.
Yes. For the items of the sales order freight unit building rule FUBR-SC-## was selected,
which has created this freight order in the short-cut process.
10. Which means of transport is used in this freight order? Do you know why?
Means of transport TM2-FTL is used in this freight order. You have defined this in step 1 of
this exercise in the freight order type.
A carrier ranking has been created, which includes at least carriers TM-CAR-10 and TM-
CAR-11. A carrier has been selected.
Yes. In the freight order type customizing, creation strategy CARR_SEL is defined, which
initiates carrier selection on creation of the freight order. Carrier selection settings
S4TM2-CARSEL-## is used in this process which is defined as a default carrier selection
setting in the customizing of freight order type F6##.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand, configure, and execute the short-cut process
Learning Assessment
1. Based on what you have learned about business share in transportation planning, which of
the following statements is true?
Choose the correct answer.
2. Incompatibilities between order and carrier, or customer and carrier, can also be
maintained in the carrier selection settings.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.
X True
X False
X True
X False
Lesson 1
Transportation Units and Service Orders 325
Lesson 2
Warehouse Integration 330
Exercise 20: Pick Delivery and Post Goods Issue 335
Lesson 3
Advance Shipping and Receiving 341
Lesson 4
Output Management 346
Exercise 21: Create Configuration of Output Management and Print Outputs 349
Lesson 5
Track & Trace 359
Lesson 6
Discrepancy Management 366
Exercise 22: Configure Discrepancy Management and Report a Discrepancy 371
UNIT OBJECTIVES
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand transportation units
● Understand service orders
Transportation Unit
TUs can represent both demand and capacity. They share some similarities with freight units
and others with freight orders, but they also differ from both freight units and freight orders.
Scenarios involving trailers, railcars, containers, and packages can be modeled by TUs,
abstracting from the specific documents called trailer units, railcar units, container units, and
package units. For these scenarios you have to configure freight order types and
transportation unit types.
Like freight documents, TUs have stages defining their paths through the network. While
trailer, railcar, and container resources can be assigned to the corresponding TUs, package
units represent one or multiple packages, each having an assigned packaging material. On the
one hand, TUs cannot move themselves; instead, they require being moved by a truck,
locomotive, vessel, or airplane and thus need to be assigned to a freight document. Therefore,
they represent a demand for transportation, like freight units.
The assignment of a TU to a freight document can be done directly – for example, trailer unit
to road freight order – or indirectly, such as container unit to trailer unit, which is then
assigned to a road freight order.
While a freight document cannot be assigned to another freight document, TUs allow nested
assignments within this document category. For example, consider the following assignment
chain: freight unit → package unit → container unit → trailer unit → road freight order. In this
case, the TUs represent three consolidation levels between freight unit and road freight order.
It is not possible to consolidate a trailer unit into another trailer unit, and this holds true
analogously for railcar units, container units, and package units.
On the other hand, TUs can consolidate other demands. Therefore, they also represent a
capacity for transportation, like freight documents. While a freight unit represents a single
transportation demand, the TU can represent a set of transportation demands that may even
have different source and destination locations. For example, a trailer is moved from location
A to B to C, delivering three freight units: the first from A to B, the second from A to C, and the
third from B to C. In general, TUs provide a lot of modeling capabilities but that requires
additional planning decisions and adds planning complexity. Therefore, we recommend
avoiding using TUs if your business can be modeled without them. Of course, for many
transportation scenarios, using TUs is mandatory because it is the only feasible way to model
your business.
Configuring TUs
Each TU has a specific type, which you can maintain in Customizing by following the menu
path Transportation Management → Planning → Transportation Unit → Define Transportation
Unit.
Within the transportation unit type, you configure the most important settings for the
transportation unit. For example, you use the transportation unit category to indicate whether
you want to create the transportation unit type for a trailer, a railcar, a container, or a
package. When you then create the related business document (for example, a trailer unit),
the system offers you only the relevant transportation units.
The following table provides explanatory information about the figure, Document Structure
with Transportation Units.
Transportation Order Structure
For truck and tailer scenarios you have to configure freight order types and transportation
unit types.
Service Order
Cleaning containers, fumigating, and performing security services or documentation are
typical examples of services that can occur for items of a freight order or freight booking. The
service order is used to account for and track services, calculate charges,and enable
settlement of the charges for services that have been provided for individual items in a freight
order/booking or for the entire freight order/booking.
You can create service orders in the following two ways:
● Create service orders from freight bookings, freight orders, freight booking items, or
freight order items. With such a service order, you can:
- Enter service items related to the freight booking, freight order, freight booking item, or
freight order item.
- Add service items that are not related to the freight booking, freight order, freight
booking item, or freight order item. You can do this using the Add Service action without
marking another item.
● Create stand-alone service orders without reference to any freight booking, freight order,
freight booking item, or freight order item. You can use the Create Service Order function
to create a service order by entering the service order type.
You can use the change controller to define how the system reacts to changes.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand transportation units
● Understand service orders
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand warehouse integration
SAP Note 1984252 describes the known supported functional scope and limitations of the
direct integration.
Delivery processing in SAP S/4HANA involves grouping deliveries to pick, pack, and ship and
then performing all the functions associated with the delivery process. Based on split criteria
or combination indicators, you can group together entire orders or individual items or split
orders into partial deliveries. Outbound deliveries are created and scheduled in SAP S/
4HANA and are the basis for transportation planning in SAP TM.
Because of the transportation planning in SAP TM, a freight order is created in SAP TM,
which, as soon as the freight order is ready for loading, results in the creation of a
transportation unit in SAP EWM.
One or more delivery positions can create one or more freight units. At all times, the
documents created in SAP TM can be seen in the delivery via the document flow in the TM
Status tab of the delivery.
The deliveries are visible both in SAP TM for transportation planning and execution and in
SAP EWM for warehouse planning and execution. In SAP EWM, the delivery creates an
outbound delivery order, which acts as the actual warehouse request and initiates the GI
process in SAP EWM.
The outbound delivery contains data assumed from the preceding document and all
necessary information to trigger the GI process and monitor it accordingly. From the
perspective of warehouse management, the outbound delivery order represents a work list
that is completed only when the picked materials have been loaded and shipped.
The outbound delivery order in SAP EWM is still blocked for processing. It is released as soon
as the transportation planning process in SAP TM is completed, and SAP EWM is updated
with the final planning results. Sending the loading instructions to SAP EWM creates a TU and
automatically assigns the outbound delivery orders. With this assignment, the outbound
delivery orders are unlocked and updated with the related carrier information from SAP TM.
Unlocked outbound delivery order with transportation units are now the basis for warehouse
execution in SAP EWM. The SAP TM freight order now exists as a transportation unit in SAP
EWM. To easily identify the same object across all three systems, they all share the same
document number.
As soon as the materials have been picked, staged, and loaded,GI can be posted. During the
outbound process execution, SAP TM is updated with all execution-relevant information and
events.
The process starts with a sales order and a planned delivery date. This automatically creates
freight units. These are then the basis for transportation planning and optimization in SAP
TM.
The transportation planning in SAP TM is completed as soon as the transportation capacity of
the freight orders has been fully planned and all relevant transportation requirements have
been assigned. After the carrier has been assigned, SAP TM can trigger the creation of a SAP
S/4HANA outbound delivery and communicate the freight order number to the selected
carrier. These deliveries are based on the transportation planning results and therefore
consider planning constraints, such as resource availability, distances, durations, and
consolidation and dates. This step can be executed manually or automatically as a
background job. As soon as the delivery has been created, the document flow in SAP TM is
updated to show all related documents to a freight unit and freight order.
When the deliveries have been created, they are visible in the SAP EWM environment for
further processing as outbound delivery orders. The SAP S/4HANA delivery is created with
the proposed delivery date from SAP TM. If the SAP EWM outbound delivery orders haven’t
been assigned to a TU, these orders are locked for execution. When the transportation
planning activities are finished, and the freight order status has been set to Cargo Ready for
Loading, SAP TM sends a loading instruction to SAP EWM. This triggers the creation of a TU in
SAP EWM. In SAP EWM, the transportation units are automatically assigned to the (locked)
outbound delivery orders . With this assignment, the outbound delivery orders are unlocked
and updated with the related carrier information from SAP TM. Unlocked outbound delivery
orders, assigned to a Transportation units, are now the basis for warehouse execution in SAP
EWM.
Goods are picked, staged, and loaded on a truck. Posting GI in SAP EWM immediately adjusts
the inventory in SAP S/4HANA, updating the outbound deliveries and the freight order in SAP
TM for a later freight cost settlement.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM. From the freight order, the goods issue
process shall be triggered. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to set up and
execute this process.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Trigger delivery creation for the freight order created in the exercise "Execute Carrier
Selection".
2. How many deliveries have been created? Note down the delivery number(s).
3. What is the execution status of the freight order? What is the logistical execution status?
4. Pick both items of the delivery from storage location 0001 at today's date with the Pick
Outbound Delivery app. Afterwards, post goods issue.
6. Change the Execution Status on the freight order to Set to Loaded. What is the execution
status of the freight order now? What is the logistical execution status?
7. What is the handling execution status for both freight order items?
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM. From the freight order, the goods issue
process shall be triggered. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how to set up and
execute this process.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Trigger delivery creation for the freight order created in the exercise "Execute Carrier
Selection".
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Order Management → Freight Order (Worklist).
c) Click on the column header for Document Type and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your document type F2## and choose OK.
f) Click on your freight order number (the one that has a carrier assigned in the Carrier
column).
2. How many deliveries have been created? Note down the delivery number(s).
a) In the freight order, select the Document Flow tab. Check the delivery number in the
document flow.
3. What is the execution status of the freight order? What is the logistical execution status?
The execution status is Not Started. The logistical execution status is SP_1010 ( ) Not
Planned.
a) In the freight order, select the Statuses tab. Check the statuses.
4. Pick both items of the delivery from storage location 0001 at today's date with the Pick
Outbound Delivery app. Afterwards, post goods issue.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Shipping and Warehouse Management → Pick
Outbound Delivery.
b) In the Delivery field, enter the delivery number of the delivery created in step 1 of this
exercise and press the enter key.
d) For the first item, select > to get to the details screen.
e) In the Picking Quantity field, enter the same number as in the field Delivery Quantity (3
or 4) and in the Storage Location field, enter 0001.
f) Choose Apply.
g) For the second item, select > to get to the details screen.
h) In the Picking Quantity field, enter the same number as in the field Delivery Quantity (3
or 4) and in the Storage Location field, enter 0001.
i) Choose Apply.
j) Choose Save.
c) Click on the column header for Document Type and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your document type F2## and choose OK.
f) Click on your freight order number (the one that has a carrier assigned in the Carrier
column).
g) In the freight order, select the Statuses tab. Check the statuses.
6. Change the Execution Status on the freight order to Set to Loaded. What is the execution
status of the freight order now? What is the logistical execution status?
The execution status has changed to Loading in Process. The logistical execution status
has changed to SP_1010 Loaded with timestamp.
b) Choose Save.
7. What is the handling execution status for both freight order items?
b) In the Change hierarchy dropdown menu, select Status Management. Check the
statuses.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand warehouse integration
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand Advance Shipping and Receiving
https://youtu.be/jLZM5S84AWM
Storage Location
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 in 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.
Assignment of Doors:
Assign Stock Room Management (STRM) doors or Lean Warehouse Management (Lean WM)
doors to Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) doors or loading points. This setting is
mandatory for all scenarios using shared doors and multiple warehousing components. The
setting is not required for a scenario that only uses EWM.
Consignment order
A consignment order serves as an important basis for the communication between the
partners that are involved in a business process. For example, as a supplier you can
communicate to your ordering party which products you will deliver to a certain destination
on a specific delivery date. The consignment order receives an ID that serves as a reference
for the business partners. Consignment order can be assigned to one freight order.
Based on a consignment order, you can also perform subcontracting, charge calculation,
settlement with the carrier, and shipment tracking. It is not, however, possible to perform
tendering based on a consignment order.
You can then assign the consignment order to a road freight order and in doing so stipulate on
which truck the products contained in the consignment order are to be transported. A
consignment order can be assigned to only one freight order at a time and must be
completely assigned. A freight order can, however, contain several consignment orders. The
transportation is then planned and executed based on the freight order.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand Advance Shipping and Receiving
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Explore the configuration of output management
Output Management
You can use output management to print, fax, and email documents such as order, delivery,
and billing information. You can also execute application-to-application or business-to-
business actions. The Post Processing Framework (PPF) is a tool in SAP TM used to execute
program logic that is considered a follow-up action to a certain business process step. The
PPF is used for the following tasks or actions (to name a few):
● Document printing
All actions are defined in the PPF with a schedule condition that defines whether the action
needs to be executed and a processing time that defines when to execute the action.
An action profile bundles all actions concerning a specific business process area (for example,
the action profile /SCMTMS/TOR bundles all actions important for the freight order). You can
see in the Action Settings area where we can define the processing time of the action and
whether the action should be scheduled automatically or by a batch job.
The processing type of the action can be one of the following:
● Trigger alert
● Method call
● Work-flow
● Smart Forms actions
● External communication
To trigger PPF actions, start and schedule conditions need to be configured according to
business needs or rules, as follows:
● Schedule condition:
The schedule condition decides whether an action should be scheduled for processing. An
action is therefore only generated if the schedule condition is met.
The filter value is specified in the Schedule condition field. The standard value /BOFU/
EVAL_SCHEDULE_CONDITION ensures that the method in the agent class is invoked.
● Start condition:
The start condition is checked before the action is executed. The action is only executed
when the start condition has been fulfilled.
The filter value is specified in the Start condition field. The standard value /BOFU/
EVAL_START_CONDITION ensures that the method in the agent class is invoked.
Adapter Settings
Output management automates the output of business documents such as printouts, in
response to certain business events. This output management adapter helps you to integrate
output management functionality with application business objects (BOs) that are
implemented in a business object processing framework (BOPF).
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how
to set up output management and how to create outputs.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a road waybill document (CMR) for the freight order created in the exercise
"Execute Carrier Selection". To do so, open the freight order and change its execution
status to Ready for Transportation Execution. Review the waybill document.
5. Identify the four main processing types supported in post processing framework.
6. Identify the standard action profile for printing freight documents for road freight.
9. Explore the action definition settings for the action definition /SCMTMS/PRINT_CMR.
12. Locate the form name for processing type external communication for /SCMTMS/
PRINT_CMR.
15. What is the difference between start conditions and schedule conditions?
19. Identify the agent class associated with the printing TOR objects.
20. Identify the action profiles associated with the /SCMTMS/TOR_PRINTING output agent.
21. Identify whether actions relating to the printing of documents for road are enabled.
22. Identify whether it is possible to skip the schedule condition checks for /SCMTMS/
PRINT_CMR.
23. Identify whether it is possible to skip the start condition checks for the action definition /
SCMTMS/PRINT_CMR.
24. Identify the output profiles associated with the freight order type F2##.
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how
to set up output management and how to create outputs.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Create a road waybill document (CMR) for the freight order created in the exercise
"Execute Carrier Selection". To do so, open the freight order and change its execution
status to Ready for Transportation Execution. Review the waybill document.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Order Management → Freight Order (Worklist).
c) Click on the column header for Document Type and select (User Defined Filter).
d) In the pop-up window, enter your document type F2## and choose OK.
f) Click on your freight order number (the one that has a carrier assigned in the Carrier
column) to open it.
g) In the freight order, select ... → Execution Status → Ready for Transportation
Execution.
h) Choose Save.
k) In the row for Road Waybill (Europe), choose Actions → Document Preview.
An action profile is used to group action definitions that belong together. For example, an
action profile can be used to group all actions related to freight orders for road.
An action definition is the basic structure for an action. It defines characteristics of the
action such as the time of trigger and whether it can be executed from the UI.
5. Identify the four main processing types supported in post processing framework.
6. Identify the standard action profile for printing freight documents for road freight.
e) Check the list for an action profile with the description Actions for Print Documents
Road Freight.
The action definition is active because the Inactive checkbox is not selected.
9. Explore the action definition settings for the action definition /SCMTMS/PRINT_CMR.
If the Changeable in Dialog checkbox is not selected, actions triggered by the action
definition can no longer be manually changed after automatic determination.
12. Locate the form name for processing type external communication for /SCMTMS/
PRINT_CMR.
a) On the Display View “Processing Types” Overview screen, select the Document tab.
PDF-Based Forms.
15. What is the difference between start conditions and schedule conditions?
Schedule conditions specify when actions are scheduled or generated for processing.
Start conditions specify when actions are triggered or processed.
d) In the Scheduling of Actions column, in the Action Profiles folder, choose Actions for
Print Documents Road Freight (double-click).
e) Choose (Technical Names) to view the technical names of the action profiles.
f) In the Actions for Print Documents Road Freight table, select the /SCMTMS/
PRINT_CMR action definition.
An agent class can be used to capture business logic for processing or generating actions.
19. Identify the agent class associated with the printing TOR objects.
20. Identify the action profiles associated with the /SCMTMS/TOR_PRINTING output agent.
21. Identify whether actions relating to the printing of documents for road are enabled.
22. Identify whether it is possible to skip the schedule condition checks for /SCMTMS/
PRINT_CMR.
No. The Can Gnrt. W/o Check (Can Generate Without Check) checkbox is unselected,
therefore it is not possible to skip the schedule condition checks.
d) Look at the Can Gnrt. W/o Check (Can Generate Without Check) checkbox.
23. Identify whether it is possible to skip the start condition checks for the action definition /
SCMTMS/PRINT_CMR.
No. The Can Execute Without Condition Check checkbox is unselected, therefore it is not
possible to skip the start condition checks.
24. Identify the output profiles associated with the freight order type F2##.
d) Select the freight order type F2## and choose (Details) to view the details.
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Explore the configuration of output management
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Monitoring Events
Execution Tracking
You use this function to determine whether the end user can manually report the execution of
transportation processes managed by TM, or not. For example, the end user reports that an
event has happened such as a freight order has arrived at a destination.
Execution Tracking reports the tracking of the following TM business documents:
● Freight Units
● Freight Orders and Freight Bookings
● Transportation Units
Features:
● No Execution Tracking: With this option selected, there is no tracking of executions. This is
the default option.
● Execution Tracking: With this option you allow execution tracking without an external
event management system. That is, the system automatically starts the tracking of
executions reported manually from transportation processes managed by TM. The data
this creates is stored in the TM database.
● Execution Tracking with External Event Management; With this option you allow execution
tracking with an external event management system. The system stores the data from the
tracking of executions in the TM database, but it can also send it to an external event
management system. This option requires the connection of an external event
management system, such as SAP Event Management. The use of SAP Event
Management means that an end user can use its simple in-built interfaces to report actual
events, such as a freight order has arrived. Further, the time that those actual events
occurred can be compared with the time they were expected to occur. In addition, SAP
Event Management allows events that are related but unexpected to be reported. Together
this means that for any tracked item a database record is always available including its last
known event. From that you can know whether that item is on track, late or whether an
unexpected has happened to it. You can also use rule-based processing in-built into SAP
Event Management to trigger automatic follow up activities.
You can see and change the current settings for execution tracking in Customizing. The path
in Customizing depends on the type of TM business document as follows:
● For freight orders, make the settings in Customizing for Transportation Management
under Freight Order Management Freight Order Define Freight Orders Types. Then you
select the Details button and under Execution Settings, select an option from the field
Execution Tracking Relevance.
● For freight bookings, make the settings in Customizing for Transportation Management
under Freight Order Management Freight Booking Define Freight Booking Types. Then you
select the Details button and under Execution Settings, select an option from the field
Execution Tracking Relevance.
● For transportation units, make the settings in Customizing for Transportation
Management under Freight Order Management Transportation Unit Define Transportation
Unit Types. Then you select the Details button and under Execution Settings, select an
option from the field Execution Tracking Relevance.
● For freight units, make the settings in Customizing for Transportation Management under
Freight Order Management Planning Freight Unit Define Freight Unit Types. Then you
select the Details button and under Execution Settings, select an option from the field
Execution Tracking Relevance.
Event Management
Event Management
Nowadays, supply chains are global and complex. End-to-end supply chain visibility is one of
the key factors in efficient supply chain operation and control. SAP Event Management is the
only application needed to provide this visibility, since it is available to all partners, including
customers. SAP Event Management can also work with multiple SAP and non-SAP
applications.
As companies expand their suite of IT products to handle more complex scenarios, they often
have to add systems to their ERP environment. This makes it difficult for business users and
management to gain a complete view of end-to-end processes and monitor potential service
issues. Therefore, it is imperative to have a tool that can incorporate information from several
systems and provide insight into how order fulfillment is progressing.
SAP Event Management makes processes, assets, and performance visible across the entire
supply chain. Extensive tracking and tracing functions allow process monitoring, automated
exception resolution, proactive alerting, as well as extensive reporting in a single solution.
The event management system is designed to work with several SAP ERP & S4 HANA
instances, if necessary. It can communicate with SAP CRM, where sales orders may be
received, and this communication is processed back to the customer to support order
fulfillment. SAP IBP may be responsible for creating the replenishment plan. SAP ERP or SAP
Manufacturing Execution may be responsible for communication and tracking progress on
the shop floor. SAP EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) may be responsible for the
picking and packing as part of the logistics execution.
In each case, the goal is to manage by exception, reduce time to action, and spend less time
fire-fighting.
Monitor, notify, analyze, and adjust - these are the four cornerstones of SAP Event
Management, and they contribute in providing an adaptive solution. The monitoring process
collects data from the various source systems. Notifications can be set up to be triggered,
with alerts sent to the parties responsible if a process deviates from its anticipated course.
Based on the alerts, the appropriate parties can then simulate adjustments and make any
necessary changes. Finally, in relation to analytics, SAP Event Management can be tied into
the SAP BW environment to support transportation management reviews.
In the integration between SAP TM and SAP EM, two different interfaces and functions are
used, as follows:
1. Creation and update of the Event Handler with all expected events and other critical fields
such as parameter and tracking IDs.
2. Sending or reporting of events from the SAP TM system, for example, loading or unloading
events from freight unit or freight order.
To be able to create event handlers in SAP TM, you must configure the application object
types (AOTs). From the AOTs, the extractors are created. These extractors send the data to
SAP EM and create SAP EM event handlers.
Content of Application Object Types
Application Object Types contain the following:
Content of Extractors
The extractors contain the following:
● A freight order
● A freight booking
● A freight unit
● A transportation unit
● Other objects
An event handler represents a business document (for example, freight order, freight unit, or
transportation unit) or a business process (for example, within a Transportation Execution)
that is relevant to tracking or monitoring functions. SAP EM creates an event handler for each
object. The event handler contains all of the information necessary to track this application
object. It contains this information in a form that is independent of its origin, so that SAP EM
can map and track business processes in a uniform way.
The event handler information makes it possible to enable the monitoring of events that are
reported to SAP EM for an application object, and to check if the actual events occur in line
with the expected events. In SAP TM, event types are used to send or report events to SAP
EM.
GTT
The aim of SAP Logistics Business Network, global track and trace option is to capture,
process and store tracking information about tracked processes and objects. Then, it allows
business users to get real-time transparency of the execution of those processes. They can
query any tracked process and display its retrieved data from end to end.
Further, SAP Logistics Business Network, global track and trace option can use rule-based
triggering to automatically detect when certain predefined conditions occur such as delay or
damage to goods. The rules can also be used to trigger follow-up activities such as sending
emails to users or updating back-end systems.
SAP Logistics Business Network, global track and trace option is a cloud service. The service
is an optional package you can select as part of the SAP Logistics Business Network solution.
Features:
1. A cloud-based track and trace service to capture, process and store messages with tracking
information about business processes.
2. A cloud-based service that allows connected cloud apps to trace those business processes
by retrieving tracking information.
3. Tools for an administrator to define and model the business processes to be tracked and
their related events and properties. He or she can also configure business rules used by the
event-to-action engine to process and evaluate received event messages and to trigger
automated follow up actions.
4. Tools for an administrator to replicate master data (business partner, location and
product) from connected back-end systems.
5. Tools for an administrator to manage on-boarding, configuration and setup.
6. Apps for a business user, for example, to query any tracked process or object and display it
from end-to\u0002end, including to:
● display its milestones with planned and actual date/times
● display details of its processes
● report planned and unplanned events
● visualize related locations on a geographical map
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Monitoring Events
LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Configure discrepancy management
Discrepancy Management
The actual quantity cannot be estimated precisely beforehand, for example, when
transporting bulk freight. When the transportation execution starts, the actual quantity needs
to be recorded as well. This process in the SAP TM functionality is called discrepancy
handling. Discrepancies are a hassle for transportation execution because they might affect
the choice of vehicle resource being used for the transportation or lead to a different charge
calculation. Therefore, discrepancies need to be discussed with the shipper before
transportation can continue. The transportation process starts as usual, requested quantities
are entered into a forwarding order, and freight units are created out of this document. After
the freight units are planned, the execution of the transportation may begin. The carrier now
physically receives the cargo and checks the actual quantities against the requested
quantities. This checking and reporting is performed by the carrier and communicated to us
as the freight forwarder. We will then enter the actual quantities in the freight order’s items.
If the carrier does not receive the cargo as planned, you need to report the discrepancy. In
general, you can differentiate between two types of discrepancies as follows:
● Quantity discrepancies: The actual quantities are different from the requested quantities
because of a change in the quantity, gross weight, or volume.
- The actual quantity, the actual weight, or the actual volume is lower than expected.
- The actual quantity, the actual weight, or the actual volume is larger than expected.
- You have received unexpected cargo.
● Other discrepancies: Discrepancies that are not caused by a change in quantities are
called other discrepancies. If the cargo is damaged, or documents are missing for the
cargo, these events can be recorded as other discrepancies.
- There is a dangerous goods item that you have not designated as such.
- The packaging of an item is damaged.
- You have received over dimensional or high-value cargo.
- A different equipment type or package type has been used.
Customizing Discrepancy
Before you can handle any discrepancies in SAP TM, you define the discrepancy types in
Customizing.
You can define different types of discrepancies in Customizing by following the IMG menu
path Transportation Management → Freight Order Management → Define Discrepancy Profile.
In this Customizing activity, you can define discrepancy types and associate them with
predefined events and discrepancy subcategories. Further, among the discrepancy types
associated with the same event, you must select one discrepancy type as the default
discrepancy type. You can also define lower or upper discrepancy tolerances.
You can define discrepancy profiles. If you do so, you can assign discrepancy types with
different stop categories to them. You can assign discrepancy profiles to freight order types,
freight booking types, and transportation unit types.
● Add any necessary notes to a reported discrepancy within either the Note or the Notes
column on the Discrepancies tab of the item details.
● It is possible to unassigned FUs for which discrepancies have been reported. FUs can be
unassigned from a FO, FB, or TU in the FO/FB/TU screen or in the transportation cockpit.
While the discrepancy and the block or blocks still exist on the freight unit level, they are
removed in the FB, FO, or TU. This means that the cargo (without the goods of the
unassigned FU) can proceed with further processing.
Features
Resolving Discrepancies
During execution, discrepancies can be determined between the actual quantities and the
quantities that have been ordered by the customer. Furthermore, exceptions can occur, such
as missing or damaged cargo. This data can be sent from SAP EWM to SAP TM, and either
copied into the freight order or freight booking automatically, or entered into the freight order
or freight booking manually.
The customer service agent or transportation planner must decide with the ordering party
how to proceed with the discrepancies. Depending on this decision, the customer service
agent can adjust the ordered data to the actual data, or can plan the subsequent delivery of
missing cargo.
To support the exception handling process, the following functions of SAP TM have been
added or enhanced:
● Discrepancy profile with the option to define discrepancy subcategories
● Personal object worklist (POWL) for discrepancies
● Copy of actual data from freight document to ordered data of forwarding order
● Change of forwarding order data after execution has started
● Assignment of local freight document items to forwarding orders and freight units
● Manual freight unit split after execution has started
● Manual corrections of items, for example, after transfer of data from SAP EWM
You can use the action associated with the Undo Resolve button for specific discrepancy
types only. The following conditions apply:
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how
to set up discrepancy management.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Will the document get blocked if a general discrepancy (discrepancy type 1000) gets
reported?
2. Which quantity deviation (in percentage) will lead to a block if missing quantity is reported
with discrepancy type S4TO?
3. Create a Discrepancy Profile DISCS4## and assign the discrepancy types 1000, 2010, and
S4TO to it. Assign the discrepancy profile to your freight order type F2##.
4. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-01 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 10 PCs of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is TM-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
5. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and selection
profiles for freight units and freight orders S4TM2-SEL-##. Use transportation cockpit
layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Create a freight order from the shipping point SP_1010 to
customer TM2G##-01 using vehicle resource TM2FTL-## by assigning the freight unit
created in the previous step to the vehicle resource. Save your planning result. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
6. Execute carrier selection for your freight order and save the result. Make a note of your
freight order number.
7. Navigate to the freight order and trigger delivery creation. Report loading and departure.
8. What is the execution status of the freight order now? What is the logistical execution
status?
9. Has a discrepancy been reported for the material in the freight order?
10. The driver calls you to report that while unloading, he realizes that there are only 8 PCs of
material TM-MAT-01 on the truck. In Cargo Management, report the actual quantity of 8
PCs on the truck.
11. Has a discrepancy been reported for the material in the freight order?
14. Report a general discrepancy for the freight order with type 1000 and enter a reason for
the discrepancy "Material is labelled incorrectly.".
15. Determine the status of the freight unit related Item 10 of the freight order.
16. Identify the reasons for the block on the freight unit.
19. Determine the status of the freight unit for the Item 10 after the discrepancy has been
resolved
Business Example
ABC Corporation wants to implement SAP TM. Sue, the SAP consultant, needs to explain how
to set up discrepancy management.
Note:
In this exercise, when you see ##, replace the characters with the two-digit
number (01 to 30) assigned to you by your instructor.
1. Will the document get blocked if a general discrepancy (discrepancy type 1000) gets
reported?
2. Which quantity deviation (in percentage) will lead to a block if missing quantity is reported
with discrepancy type S4TO?
The tolerance (lower and upper tolerance) is 10%. Deviations from this tolerance will lead
to a block.
3. Create a Discrepancy Profile DISCS4## and assign the discrepancy types 1000, 2010, and
S4TO to it. Assign the discrepancy profile to your freight order type F2##.
c) In the dialog structure, double-click on Discrepancy Profiles and choose New Entries.
d) Enter DISCS4## as the name of the discrepancy profile and the following description:
Discrepancy Profile User ##.
e) Select the line with the new entry and, from the dialog structure, choose Assign
Discrepancy Types to Profile.
f) Choose New Entries and enter the discrepancy types 1000, 2010, and S4TO.
4. Create a sales order for customer TM2G##-01 with order type ZTM2. Use the following
organizational data:
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
You want to sell 10 PCs of material TM-MAT-01 and the customer reference is TM-##.
Note down the order number of your Sales Order.
a) In the SAP Fiori launchpad, go to Sales Documents → Create Sales Orders.
● Distribution Channel: 10
● Division: 00
c) Choose Continue.
● Sold-to-Party: TM2G##-01
● Material: TM-MAT-01
● Order Quantity: 10
e) Choose Save.
5. Enter the transportation cockpit with your planning profile S4TM2-PLAN-## and selection
profiles for freight units and freight orders S4TM2-SEL-##. Use transportation cockpit
layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE. Create a freight order from the shipping point SP_1010 to
customer TM2G##-01 using vehicle resource TM2FTL-## by assigning the freight unit
created in the previous step to the vehicle resource. Save your planning result. Use the
following data:
Field Value
Layout TCLAYOUT-SIMPLE
b) Select the row with the relevant entries from the table above.
c) Choose Continue.
d) Select the freight unit to customer TM2G##-01 (the one created in the previous step
to be identified by its sales order number) in the Freight Unit Stages screen area.
g) Choose Save.
6. Execute carrier selection for your freight order and save the result. Make a note of your
freight order number.
a) In Road Freight Orders, select your freight order.
c) Choose Save.
7. Navigate to the freight order and trigger delivery creation. Report loading and departure.
a) In the Road Freight Orders screen area, click on your freight order number.
c) Choose Save.
d) Choose Edit.
f) Choose Save.
h) Choose Save.
8. What is the execution status of the freight order now? What is the logistical execution
status?
The execution status has changed to In Execution. The logistical execution status has
changed to SP_1010 Departed with timestamp.
9. Has a discrepancy been reported for the material in the freight order?
10. The driver calls you to report that while unloading, he realizes that there are only 8 PCs of
material TM-MAT-01 on the truck. In Cargo Management, report the actual quantity of 8
PCs on the truck.
a) Navigate to the Items tab.
c) In the Actual Quantity column for product Product 10 Material for TM, enter 8.
d) Choose Save.
11. Has a discrepancy been reported for the material in the freight order?
Today’s date.
Yes. The quantity discrepancy type permits a ± 10% deviation from the planned quantity
without a block. The order quantity is 10 pieces, so the permissible deviation is ± 1. Actual
quantities greater than 11 and less than 9 are outside the tolerance limits and, therefore,
the document will be blocked.
Note:
You can also see this on the Blocking Information tab.
14. Report a general discrepancy for the freight order with type 1000 and enter a reason for
the discrepancy "Material is labelled incorrectly.".
a) Navigate to the Items tab.
15. Determine the status of the freight unit related Item 10 of the freight order.
There is a red light next to the freight unit. The red light means that the freight unit is
blocked.
b) In the Document Hierarchy column, check the status (stop light) icon in the row of the
freight unit.
16. Identify the reasons for the block on the freight unit.
There is a planning and execution block, because a discrepancy was reported for the
freight unit item in the freight order. Choose Details to find out more information about the
blocks.
a) To open the freight unit, in the Document Flow tab, choose the freight unit number.
c) On the Discrepancies tab, select Quantity Discrepancy and choose Resolve → Resolve
(Delete Missing Cargo).
No. The block was removed when the discrepancy was resolved.
19. Determine the status of the freight unit for the Item 10 after the discrepancy has been
resolved
LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Configure discrepancy management
Learning Assessment
X A Container
X B Railcar
X C Trailer
X D Vehicle resource
2. You can also assign valid item types to your service order types.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.
X True
X False
X A SAP EWM and SAP TM run as part of the SAP S/4HANA system since 1709.
X B SAP S/4HANA was designed to reflect the principle of one design idea.
X C Direct access to master data is not possible in the SAP S/4HANA environment.
4. Transportation Unit is not used when using Advance Shipping and Receiving functionality?
Determine whether this statement is true or false.
X True
X False
5. Which of the following are conditions necessary for PPF Output Management?
Choose the correct answers.
X A Scheduling Condition
X B Spool Condition
X C Starting Condition
X D Update Condition
6. When a discrepancy is reported in a freight order document, what blocks are applied to
the freight order?
Choose the correct answers.
X A Planning block
X B Execution block
X C Invoicing block
X D Delivery block