Shipment - Hints and Limitations
Shipment Completion and Delivery
Delivery Confirm Customer Order
A shipment is defined as a dispatch of goods from one party to another, where the receiver ID, delivery address, ship-via, delivery terms, and shipment type are the common denominators for all the source lines (eg. customer order lines or shipment order lines). One shipment ID can contain a number of source lines from different sources, as long as the receiver ID, delivery address, ship-via, delivery terms, and shipment type are the same on all the lines. Thus, a shipment can be useful if you want to handle several sources with outbound logistic requirements (eg. Shipment Order) as one unit and dispatch the goods to one address. The shipment facilitates one single point of entry, handling, and delivery of a shipment, including printing of all necessary shipment documents.
First a shipment is initiated and source lines are connected to the shipment manually or automatically. When a source line is connected to a shipment, the remaining quantity to be delivered is assigned to the shipment as a shipment line. The quantity of a source line can be connected to several shipments in parallel in order to handle a limited transport capacity, a backorder situation where you want to prepare the next delivery in advance, a customer requiring a certain delivery schedule etc. In other words, a shipment line is a subset of the quantity of a source line. Then the shipment process consists of main activities needed in order to proceed with the shipment. In the shipment process, the shipment can have the Preliminary, Completed or Closed status. In the table below you can see all the main activities in the shipment process and the status of the shipment as the main flow proceeds:
| Main Activity | Shipment Status |
| Reserve | Preliminary |
| Create Pick List | Preliminary |
| Print Pick List | Preliminary |
| Report Picking | Preliminary |
| Complete | Completed |
| Deliver | Completed |
| Close | Closed |
When a shipment is initiated, it assumes the Preliminary status. At this stage, you can make a modification, a reservation, create a pick list, print the pick list and pick the report for the shipment. When a shipment is in the Preliminary status, you can make a transition to the Completed status, when packed and ready for delivery. You should note however, that it is also possible to change what is to be delivered by converting a shipment in the Completed status back to a Preliminary status, as long as the shipment has not been delivered. The final stage of a shipment is when it reaches the Closed status. At this point, further changes to most of the content of the shipment is not allowed and it is considered final and ready for invoicing.
In addition to the main activities, the shipment process also consists of a set of optional activities that you can perform if needed. This includes printing of documents, packing of goods into handling unit structure, connection to a consolidated shipment etc. These optional activities can be performed at any stage of the shipment process. For example, they can be performed in an early stage in order to prepare the shipment and its documents in advance. If changes to the shipment occur later, the optional activity can be performed again until considered as final.
The shipment type of the shipment is essential to control how the shipment process is executed. The shipping process of the company determines how the shipment type should be defined to get a streamlined and effective process. For instance, the shipment type controls:
When the source is customer order, defined shipment types can be entered as a default per site, per customer delivery address or per supply chain relation. A default shipment type defined per supply chain relation has the highest priority, then per customer delivery address and lastly per site. The default shipment type is retrieved when you enter a customer order or a shipment, but you can manually enter another shipment type if needed. Basically, the control of the progress is handed over from the order type of the customer order to the shipment type as soon as a shipment is created.
Optionally, it is possible to initiate a consolidated shipment and manually connect shipments that have not been delivered yet. The consolidated shipment represents one departure of several shipments from the specified site, to all the delivery addresses of the connected shipments. All the activities in the shipment process, apart from report picking, can then be executed from the consolidated shipment. The benefits with the consolidated shipment are:
The shipment process allows for much flexibility in the outbound logistic process, and thereby facilitates the following:
As mentioned earlier, a shipment type must be defined to run the shipment process. Apart from that, there is no basic data requirements as such prior to using the shipment function. However, it will be useful to note the following:
Among the basic shipment information such as the ship-via, delivery terms, and forward agent ID, default values are retrieved from the receiver's delivery address specified on the shipment when it is initiated. You can modify these default values, but note that if the address details, ship-via and delivery terms are modified after lines have been connected to the shipment, this will not be automatically updated in the connected source lines.
With regard to attaching parts to handling unit structure, you should note that it is not a must for a shipment to have a handling unit structure. However, to enable attaching shipment lines or automatic packing into a handling unit structure, the following must be maintained in advance:
- On the Part Basic Data/Storage Requirement Groups/Capacity tab, define the maximum quantity per handling unit type and part unit of measure for the group of parts.
- On the Part Catalog/Handling Unit Capacity tab, define the maximum quantity per handling unit type and part unit of measure for the part.
- In the Parts per Handling Unit page, define the maximum quantity per part and part unit of measure for the handling unit.
A shipment process enables proactive shipment planning and re-planning. The process enables you to create preliminary shipments, containing quantities from source lines in different statuses from various sources (eg. customer orders, shipment orders and project deliverables), and then you can work with the connected quantities as shipment lines. For customer orders, the lines can be either the Released, Reserved, Picked, or Partially Delivered status from various orders. The shipment process as detailed above will generally include a number of activities and different stages. The shipment type of the shipment, controls if the activities in the the shipment process should be performed manually or automatically. In addition, the shipment type controls whether or not any optional activities should be performed automatically in the shipment flow. The process also enables the possibility to manually connect several shipments to a consolidated shipment as long as the shipment is not delivered.
In order to initiate a shipment, you need to first enter the receiver, site, and delivery address. If the receiver type is customer, with this initial information, other information such as delivery terms, ship-via, and the forward agent ID connected to the customer is automatically included in the shipment.
For customer and shipment orders, you must note that you can connect an order line to a shipment automatically when an order is released or (for customer order only) when the pick list is created. This is possible if the order line has a Shipment Creation option other than Not Automatic. The Shipment Creation option is defaulted from the Shipment Type in the order header and will be copied to the order lines having the same default values. A source line can be connected automatically to a shipment, if the receiver, site, delivery address, ship-via, delivery terms and shipment type is the same, if the shipment status is Preliminary, the shipment is not blocked for automatic connection of source lines and the consolidation parameters defined in the shipment type is the same.
When you initiate a shipment manually, you begin by creating a shipment header in which the receiver, site, and delivery address is entered. Once the shipment has been initiated, it is possible to connect order lines in the Released, Reserved, Picked, or Partially Delivered status to the shipment, given that no pick list line remains to be reported for the order line. Also, there must be a remaining quantity that is still to be delivered for the source line i.e. what is already delivered and what is already connected for delivery on shipments must be less than the source quantity.This quantity is also called as the open shipment quantity.
From project deliverables shipment plan, you can automatically initiate a shipment via Create Shipment line command. When you initiate a shipment manually, you begin by creating a shipment header in which the receiver, site, and delivery address is entered. Thereafter you can connect project deliverables shipment plan lines with a remaining quantity to be delivered.
You should note that at this stage, it is already possible to print preliminary documents such as delivery notes and consignment notes. However, before a handling unit structure has been defined for the shipment, these documents will not be complete. Defining a handling unit structure can be done automatically or manually. When executed automatically, each handling unit is cross-referenced against one or several shipment lines. When created manually the shipment lines are manually connected to the handling unit structure, or chosen not to be connected at all. The ability to automatically generate a handling unit structure enables an accurate weight and volume calculation of each container. It also provides the ability to track and trace individual containers and their exact contents in terms of quantity, part number, source line, and lot/batch number and serial number. You can make modifications to the automatically created handling unit structure by adding, deleting, or moving handling units within the structure as desired, and also by modifying the calculated weight and volumes.
In addition, it is also possible to initiate a consolidated shipment and manually connect shipments not delivered yet. The consolidated shipment represents one departure of several shipments from the specified site, to all the delivery addresses of the connected shipments. All the activities in the shipment process, apart from report picking, can then be executed from the consolidated shipment. When executed from the consolidated shipment all activities that prepare the shipments for loading are sorted in load sequence order while the activities more related to unloading are sorted in reversed load sequence order e.g. sorting of delivery notes.
For customer and shipment orders, once an order line is connected to a shipment, it will no longer be possible to handle the line in the traditional order flow. For example, pick list creation must be done in the Shipment or Shipments page. Likewise, other shipment activities such as defining a handling unit structure, delivery, and printing of shipment documents must all be performed in the same Shipment or Shipments page. However, reservation and report picking is still possible to perform in the normal order flow if desired.
The Create Pick List command in the shipment header enables a consolidated pick list to be created. However, this is not possible unless some quantity has been reserved. Once the pick list is created, and picking is performed, you can proceed to report picking or to report picking with differences using the right mouse button options in the shipment header. With this approach, it is possible to prepare a shipment at an early stage, and to prepare documents and booking proposals in advance. It should be noted that when multiple sources are connected, customer order pick list lines will not be consolidated with pick list lines for other sources. Thus there will be two pick lists created when order lines are mixed with other source lines in the shipment.
Defining a handling unit structure is not a must for a shipment. However if there is a need, defining a structure can be done automatically or manually, and each handling unit is cross-referenced against one or several order lines connected to the shipment. The ability to define a handling unit structure enables an accurate weight and volume calculation of each container. It also provides the ability to track and trace individual containers and their exact contents in terms of quantity, part numbers, source order lines, and lot/batch numbers. You can make modifications to the automatically created handling unit structure by adding, deleting, or moving handling units within the structure as desired.
You can print the following documents from a shipment. You must note that each of these documents can be printed at various stages in the shipment process, but they will not be final until the shipment is closed.
Note that all of these documents are optional activities that can be printed automatically in the shipment flow depending on the shipment type.
If you print preliminary documents before a handling unit structure has been defined for the shipment, these documents will not be complete.
When the shipment is packed and ready for delivery, the shipment should acquire the Completed status. This means that no more parts should be included in or excluded from the shipment and the handling unit structure is fixed. If you want to change anything, you should turn the shipment back to the Preliminary status. However, if you use shipment inventory you can change the quantity to be delivered also in the Completed status.
For delivery of a completed shipment, only shipment lines that have been picked partially or completely, can be registered as delivered. If a shipment is connected to a consolidated shipment the delivery must be executed from the consolidated shipment for all connected shipments since it is considered as one departure.
You can send and resend a dispatch advice manually, once the delivery of the shipment is done. However, for receiver type customer, this is only possible if you maintain the parameter as DESADV on the customer, on the Customer/Message Setup tab. Furthermore, if you wish to automatically send a dispatch note, you should enable the Send Dispatch Advice Automatically option on the Customer/Sales/Message Defaults tab.
Closure of the shipment can be automatic or manual, depending on the shipment type. The shipment being closed means that the goods have left the sender, and no further changes to the content of the shipment is allowed. The only activities still allowed when a shipment is closed, is to create shipment invoice (for source ref type customer order), send or resend the dispatch advice, print shipment documents, transport labels.
For source ref type customer orders, when the shipment is closed, you can create and print an invoice for the shipment. This can be done manually or automatically depending on the shipment type. To create the invoice per shipment is optional. A normal or collective invoice can be created in the normal way if required.
The purpose of delivery confirming an order is to confirm the customer's acceptance of a shipment prior to it being invoiced. Depending on the agreement a company has with its customers, the following scenarios are possible:
Delivery confirmation is performed as soon as goods are shipped. No interaction is required from the user.
This is usually performed by a responsible sales person. The customer notifies the seller that the shipment has been received and is accepted, which is followed by confirming acceptance.
Delivery confirmation is performed via data received in an incoming message.
Available Lines for Shipments
Batch Create Shipment Invoices
Consolidated Shipment
Create Shipment Invoices
Customer Order
Deliver Customer Orders
Distribution Order
Report Picking of Pick List Lines
Report Picking of Pick Lists
Shipment
Shipment Lines
Shipments
Site to Customer Supply Chain Parameters
Site to Site Supply Chain Parameters
Create Shipment
Deliver Shipment
Handle Picking
Shipment Delivery