Route Planning

General Information

Route planning is used to coordinate frequent deliveries of goods to customers who order quantities smaller than a full cargo space. It is useful when having several customers with similar delivery requirements, located close enough together to be serviced by the same delivery route. Route planning is also used for the purpose of planning the load sequence of the cargo space, based on the delivery addresses along the route. Booking proposals can easily be sent to forwarding agents. The load list feature can also be used together with route planning.

The Route Planning Process

The diagram below illustrates a step-by-step approach to the Route Planning process. Each box in the diagram denotes a major step in the process. As illustrated below, the route planning process commences with defining a route. Optionally, you can connect a forwarding agent to the route. Connect the route to all applicable customers, and specify a load sequence of the goods. When a customer order is created, a customer order load list or a consolidated shipment can be created optionally, depending on if the delivery process is handled in the order flow or the shipment flow. Once the customer order or shipment is reserved, a booking proposal can be generated after which the report picking and deliveries can be done based on the route.

Step-by-Step Procedure
1. Enter Delivery Route 6. Create Customer Order Load List / Consolidated Shipment
2. Connect Forwarding Agent 7. Reserve Customer Order / Shipment
3. Connect Route to Customer 8. Send Booking Proposal
4. Specify Load Sequence 9.   Report Picking
5. Enter Customer Order 10. Deliver Customer Order Load List / Consolidated Shipment
Basic Data
A. Specify customer delivery requirements (in the customer record) B. Enter forwarding agent (in IFS/Enterprise)

Purpose and Usage

A route is defined by a designated route ID. Each route is then connected to one or more route departure days and shipping times. Also, you can specify the number of days and the time before which an order can be placed, and still be included in a specific delivery route. For delivery routes you can define the due time for delivery, i.e. when goods must be available in inventory in order to be delivered on the route. For arrival routes you can define the receipt time for arrival, i.e. when goods arriving on the route will be available in inventory. Neither due time for delivery nor receipt time for arrival are considered for shipment order or distribution order.

A route can be connected to one or more customers. At order entry, the route information is retrieved from the customer record. Furthermore, the system calculates the applicable route departure date that will meet the promised delivery date. When a customer is connected to a route, you can also specify the loading sequence of the cargo space.

A route can be connected to a forwarding agent. This information is retrieved from the delivery route record at customer order entry.

You can change the route on a customer order until the order is reserved (and no pick list is printed). Reservations, creating load lists, creating shipments, creating consolidate shipments, report picking, and deliveries can be done by route.

Basic Data Requirements

Load List

The load list is a support feature used to organize several customer orders or order lines for delivery at the same time in the order flow, and can be used together with the route planning feature. The orders or order lines connected to a load list are handled as one unit until the goods are dispatched. A load list may consist of order lines from several customer orders and customers. If freight information is set up in the sales part or the package part record, this would be utilized in calculating the volume, gross weight, and net weight of a customer order load list. A load list can be created at any time in the customer order flow. The only necessary condition is that the customer order has been entered and saved. At the time of printing a load list, the information will be sorted by the load sequence. A customer order connected to a load list can be delivered only if it is picked.

Consolidated Shipment

When customer orders are delivered in the shipment flow the order lines are connected to a shipment. A shipment is defined as a dispatch of goods from one party to another, where the customer ID, delivery address, ship-via, delivery terms, and shipment type are the common denominators for all the order lines. The shipment facilitates one single point of entry, handling, and delivery of a shipment. Order lines can be connected to shipments based on route, and shipments can be connected to consolidated shipments based on route. A consolidated shipment is considered as a departure of several shipments from a specific site, to all the delivery addresses of the connected shipments e.g. multiple shipments are loaded on the same truck and unloaded on each delivery address by the same truck. In other words, the consolidated shipment can be used together with the route planning feature. For the shipments you can define the handling unit structure to be delivered, which is used for calculating the volume, gross weight, and net weight of a consolidated shipment. Activities can be executed for all shipments connected to a consolidated shipment, meaning that the load sequence is considered. 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.

Load Planning and Load Sequence

Through load planning, you are able to determine the sequence in which a cargo space needs to be loaded with different customer orders so as to eliminate unnecessary unloading and reloading of items during delivery. Thus, goods to the last delivery address on the route should be loaded first, and goods to the first delivery address should be loaded just behind the cargo-hatch.

The load sequence is typically entered after connecting a customer to a route through the Customer/Address/Sales Address Information tab. Customers cannot be added to a route in the Load Planning page, instead you can obtain an overview and plan or re-plan the load sequence for all the customers connected to a route. If the route is changed on the delivery address, the load sequence number is set to zero (0). Then you must go to the Load Planning page and redefine the sequence order of the addresses connected to the route. Also if one or several customers have been connected to a delivery route, without defining the load sequence, you can establish the sequence in the Load Planning page.

Booking Proposal

This feature is intended for booking load space on board trucks, boats, airplanes, etc. The intention with this report is to give the forwarding agent the possibility to plan the needed capacity. A proposal could be generated after the parts belonging to a single customer order has been reserved. It displays the planned deliveries for a specific date, route, or forwarding agent. The proposal can be generated for a combination of the following conditions:

The booking proposals are categorized based on the type of data it contains.

Order Specific Data: This type of booking proposal contains the following information.

You could choose to display individual order lines or only the total per order. Should you choose to display the latter, information in bullets 2 and 3 would not be displayed in the report.

Route Specific Data: This type of booking proposal contains the following information.

Specific Data Per Forwarding Agent: This type of booking proposal contains the following information.

*ADR-classified goods refer to goods that are classified as hazardous to people or to the environment.