Q&A in Class (2024-09-26) S4611

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Question: What is the Planning Profile usage and configuration menu/fiori ?

Answer: a Planning Profile is assigned to the Freight Order Type and it has the following purpose: 

• Planning horizon - the planning horizon defines the possible period of time in which the system can schedule transportation activities (for example, loading and unloading, transport).
• Profile assignments - selection profile with which you can select freight orders or freight bookings.
• Parallel processing profiles - parallel processing profiles for different functions, such as distance and duration determination and package building.
• Business document type - specify a standard business document type or a condition with which the business document type is to be determined.
• Planning strategies (see Process Controller Configuration) - specify the standard strategy or use your own strategy. You can add additional methods to the standard strategy.
• Manual planning (standard strategy VSRI_DEF) - define this strategy in the manual planning settings.
• Scheduling (standard strategy VSS_DEF) - define this strategy in the scheduling settings.
• Checks (standard strategy VSR_CHECK) - system checks capacities, incompatibilities, and multi-resources, and it performs a dangerous goods check.
• VSR optimization (standard strategies VSR_DEF and VSR_1STEP) - define this strategy in the optimizer settings.
• Load planning (standard strategy ALP_DEF) - define this strategy in the settings for load planning.
• Generating transportation proposals (standard strategies VSR_DEF and VSR_1STEP) - define this strategy in the optimizer settings.
• Loading and unloading durations
• Package building - enter a package building profile. For more information, see Package Building.
• Creating package units based on package building for freight units - enter a rule for creating package units (optional) and a default package unit type (mandatory). These settings are taken into account if the system creates first packages and then package units for freight units for which you have selected Exclusive Package for Customer. This means that the package units only receive products for a specific customer. To use the function, you must also enter a package building profile. For more information, see Use of Package Units in Planning.
• Capacity selection settings - choose the required capacities such as resources. 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 (see ADR 1.1.3.6 Points Check Calculation). Moreover, you can specify that resources for which you have set a planning block are displayed in the resource lists of the transportation cockpit.
• Optimizer settings - define the optimizer runtime, the maximum number of transshipment locations and processes, and the freight order building rule (see Freight Order Building Rule), for example. You also specify whether you require rough or detailed information for your planning activities (see Rough-Cut Planning), define the required process controller strategy, and configure the settings for generating transportation proposals (see Generation of Transportation Proposals).
• Settings for load optimization - define the optimizer runtime, the planning strategy, and various rules for load planning. For example, you can define the maximum height difference between stacks in a row.
• Constraints and costs settings (including cost functions) - 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). For more information, see Constraints and Costs Settings.
• Carrier selection settings - specify whether the system is to use transportation allocations or business shares

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Question:  What it the relationship between the EWM "TU" (Transportation Unit) against the TM "FU" (Freight Unit) and the "HU" (Handling Unit) ? 

Answer:  First, some definitions:

"SKU" (Stock Keeping Unit)

An SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) is a unique identifier for each product in inventory. In SAP, it is the "Material Master". Essentially an alphanumeric code (40 in S/4HANA) that helps the businesses track their stock and manage inventory in a certain UOM (Unit of Measure) like "PC (Pieces") or "KG (Kilogram" etc. SKU codes (Material Master) are used across industries, from retail to manufacturing, to simplify inventory management and streamline the sales process.

"HU" (Handling Unit)

Handling units (HUs) in a warehouse can be in the form of pallets, wire baskets, containers, trucks, and so on. Products packed inside a single layer of packaging material is a simple HU. You can pack multiple simple HUs inside another packaging material to create a new HU, called a nested HU.

Basically, HU's can be created for all 3 scenarios of Storage in:

• IM (Inventory Management)
• Classic WM (Stock Room Management in S/4)
• EWM

Which means that the user can packed inbound materials and outbound materials in all 3 scenarios above. 

FU (Freight Unit)

Freight Unit (FU) is a physical unit representing cargo that needs to be transported, such as the SKU (Material Master) in an PO, Sales Order, Inbound Delivery or Outbound Delivery. The SKU's can be packed in HUs (in IM, WM or EWM) before consolidated in a Freight Unit. 

TU (Transportation Unit)

Transportation Unit (TU) is something that needs to be transported (can be 1 or more FUs) which is the Cargo and uses a piece of equipment to carry that cargo (like a Container). A Transportation Unit can contain a Freight Unit if the freight unit is required to be handled individually somewhere (example in the case when unloading a container at the port and break up before further transportation) but in some cases can also be used without a Freight Unit in it if you don't need to handle the Freight Unit individually (e.g. in a full container load scenario). Examples of TUs can be Trailer Unit, Rail Car Unit or Container Units. 

One perhaps can think of the following hierarchy where

A basic TM without WM or EWM (only IM) and without HU can be:

SKU > FU (Freight Unit) > FO (Freight Order)

IM or Classic WM with HU

SKU > HU > FU (Freight Unit) > FO (Freight Order)

EWM with HU

SKU > Simple HU > FU (Freight Unit) > TU (Freight Unit) > FU (Freight Order)

.

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Question:  What are the Main Documents in SAP Basic TM (Transportation Management)? 

Answer: in Basic Transportation Management, the above RED Box with White Text are the Basic TM Documents:

Freight Unit (FU)

Freight Unit is a document in SAP TM that represents a transportation requirement, a FU can contain quantities for a SKU with or without HU (packing) from an Inbound Delivery or Outbound Delivery document. Via the "Freight Unit Building Rule", the system can automatically generated one or more FUs (split or combine) SKUs from Delivery Documents. The Freight Unit document can then be used for Transportation Planning where the next step can be included into Freight Booking (for Long Haul like Ocean and Air) or directly into Freight Orders (example for Road Freight and Rail

Freight Order (FO)

Freight Orders are primarily used in SAP TM for land transportation (road freight order) and rail transportation.

• Freight Order is used to include one or more Freight Units to be transported. 
• Subcontracting to 3rd party Transporter (Carrier) or In-house Vehicle.
• Execution data like Plan/Actual departure dates/times and arrival dates/times for the Vehicles. 
• Freight Documents Outputs (such as Airway Bills, Customer-relevant Documents). 
• Communication to 3rd party Transporter (Carrier). 
• Status information from Planning to Execution To Settlement processing. 
• End-to-End detail document flow. 
• Freight Charge Calculation, FSD creation and Posting to Cost Distribution Document, MM PO and SES, as wells as enabling TM costs to be included in SD Billing. 

Freight Agreement (FA)

A Freight Agreement between a Shipper (Company + Purchasing Organization) and a Carrier (Business Partner Vendor) that establishes a long-term contractual relationship and that defines rates for transportation services. The FA document contains Calculations sheet that includes one or more line items with the following:

• Charge Type
• Rate Table
• Scale

The Freight Agreement is then assigned to the Freight Agreement when the Freight Order is processing "Freight Charge Calculation" which will then use the information in the Freight Units (distance, weight etc) to derive the Transportation Cost. 

Freight Settlement Document (FSD)

The Freight Settlement Document (FSD) forms the basis of representing the freight document cost from TM to MM. The FSD is to be reviewed by Shipping officer or Shipping manager, possibly making some amendments before posted the FSD to create a Purchase Order (with Item Category "U" for services) and a Service Entry Sheet (SES) (with Service Masters) with the values from TM charge lines copied to these MM documents. The SES confirmation also is done simultaneously, which creates the necessary financial entries for the value of the Freight Cost to FI and Freight Accrual to Accounts Payable. 

Cost Distribution Document (CDD)

When "Posting" the FSD, TM also create the Cost Distribution Document (CDD). The CSD breakdown and distribute the freight cost at the level of each transportation requirement/demand i.e. Order/Delivery item so that the right financial treatment for the share of the cost could be attributed to appropriate Cost Objects in Controlling.  

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Question: Rate table issue, correct steps to create a Rate Table definition ?

Answer: see the following Blog Post in the recommend steps when creating the "Rate Table Definition" to avoid issues when it is included in a Freight Agreement or Freight Order.
https://froggysap.blogspot.com/2024/09/sap-tm-steps-in-calculate-rate-table.html

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Question: Show the Cost Distribution and SD billing TM Cost

Answer: see the following link to Presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/TMCostSettlement_Distribution/

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