Benefits compared to other concepts
Shipment Order as Supply/Demand
A shipment order can be used to require and carry out internal goods movement between sites and/or remote warehouses. In summary the shipment order can handle the following goods movement scenarios:
When remote warehouses are involved it could be either intra-site or inter-site in the scenarios above. For more information read About Remote Warehouse.
Once the shipment order is created and released, the execution of the goods movement is handled via the shipment and receipt process. The shipment order is connected to the shipment and the existing functionality for reservation, packing, picking, documents, delivery, sending dispatch advice is used. Once the shipment order is delivered the material is visible in the internal order transit. When the parts arrive at the destination, you can use the receipt process in order to register arrival, manage receipt, receive dispatch advice etc.
There are multiple concepts for moving goods, below the characteristics of those are described.
Transport Task and Move Inventory Part:
Transport task and move inventory part can be used to move parts between sites and/or remote warehouses. However it will be more beneficial to use more for internal stock movement within the four walls of the building. The reason for this is that there is not any shipment and receipt process to handle elements like hand-over/delivery, transit and receipt. Besides this concept requires that the material is available in stock, there is no possibility to require material to be moved in advance.
Distribution Order and Inter-Site Order:
This concept is used when there is an internal trade involved between sites including basic data for internal customers, internal suppliers, sales parts etc. This concept can not handle goods movement when there are remote warehouses involved.
This is the summary of the benefits with shipment order compared to the other concepts:
For more information about movement of parts in general, read About Moving Parts between Locations.
The shipment order consists of header and lines which can have the following statuses: Planned, Released, In Progress, Closed or Cancelled. Initially the status will be Planned.
In the header you define when the goods should be sent via the wanted receipt date which then will be default to the lines. In addition you specify from which site or remote warehouse, as well as to which site or remote warehouse the material should be delivered. Furthermore you can specify the delivery information e.g. ship via, forwarder, shipment type, lead times. Default values can be automatically fetched at order entry from different places depending on specific delivery scenario. See respective field description for details about the fetching hierarchy.
Once you have created a header you can add shipment order lines. In the lines you enter which parts and how much of the part that you want to move. You can also define when the goods movement should be done. The wanted receipt date and lead times from the header will be the default and back calculation happens from that date based on lead times. You can manually change dates and lead times. Date and lead times can be further explored by reading about lead times.
If desired, you can do manual reservation of the shipment order line. Note that availability control could be used in addition for shipment order.
When you are done you can release the shipment order to status Released. This means that the shipment order is ready for further execution in the shipment. During execution of the shipment order the status will be in In Progress. Once everything is received into stock the status will be Closed.
Once the shipment order is released it can be connected to a new or existing shipment in the following ways:
For the first two ways above, all rules defined in the shipment type will be considered. This involves how lines are consolidated into shipments, if connection to new or existing shipment will happen etc. The third way is more of a true manual connection where you can override these rules.
When the shipment order is connected to the shipment the outbound delivery process can continue and you can do actions like:
For more information read more in about shipment.
At delivery of the shipment the material is under transportation and can be tracked. The following information can be seen when in transit:
Note that this is the same internal order transit handling that we have for multi-site orders.
When the goods arrive the inbound receipt process can be used for the shipment order to do actions like:
For more information read more in about arrival and receipt.
The shipment order is a required goods movement between locations, therefore it is considered from a supply and demand perspective as well. The shipment order will contribute with the following supply and demand elements:
This implies that the same shipment order can appear both as a supply and demand when it is intra-site. The date will often differ as there is a lead time involved.
These supply and demand elements will be considered in:
Note that you have the option to consider a remote warehouse as being not nettable. This is achieved by having a default part availability control ID on the remote warehouse, that is not nettable. This implies that from a supply and demand perspective the material is dedicated for usage within the remote warehouse and will not be a supply/demand outside of the remote warehouse. For example if you have a shipment order from a site to a not nettable remote warehouse in the same site, then you will only see the demand part from a planning perspective and this could be basis for generating supply if not enough stock. This is for instance beneficial if the remote warehouse is a service van and the material is dedicated for coming jobs, however you want to demand material from the outside. Read About Remote Warehouse for more information.
When you execute the shipment order a set of inventory transactions are created to cover all the goods movement scenario:
| Transaction Code | Transaction Description | |
| INTRA-SITE | SHIPODWHS- | Deliver shipment order to a warehouse in the same site |
| SHIPODWHS+ | Receive shipment order from a warehouse in the same site | |
| INTER-SITE | SHIPODSIT- | Deliver shipment order to a site in the same company |
| SHIPODSIT+ | Receive shipment order from a site in the same company |
Above transactions are generated when a shipment order delivered and received. Apart from that INTORDTR transaction generated when a shipment order delivered in inter-site scenarios.
Below transactions are generated when a shipment order receipt is cancelled.
| Transaction Code | Transaction Description |
| UNR-SHPOD- | Reverse Shipment Order internal transfer - Receipt |
| UNR-SHPOD+ | Reverse Shipment Order internal transfer - Issue |
| UNR-SHPODW | Reverse the receipt of a Shipment Order from a warehouse in the same site |
| UNR-SHPODS | Reverse the receipt of a Shipment Order from a site in the same company |
Below is a summary of current limitations for the shipment order. For now, the shipment order doesn't handle:
These will be addressed in the coming releases.
In addition the shipment order doesn’t support goods movement between companies. It might be that this capability will be added in coming releases, but it is not decided if this correct way to go.