Figure 36: Transportation Lanes
A transportation lane in SCM represents a business relationship between the locations that you can use to transport goods. The lanes and locations represent the supply chain network. Material flow is defined by the direction of the transportation lane between the start and end location. Transportation lanes are divided into three parts:
• Product-specific entries
• Parameters for means of transport
• Product-specific entries for means of transport You can make the following settings in the charts:
• In the product-specific entries you define parameters such as lot size area, unit costs, priorities, subcontracting, and consignment. You normally transfer these entries using external procurement relationships and special procurement keys from SAP ECC.
• You set transportation costs, distances, and shipment durations in the parameters for means of transport (e.g. truck, ship, airplane). These settings are implemented in SCM. Here, you can also assign carriers to the means of transport for Transportation Planning/Vehicle Scheduling (TP/VS).
• In the product-specific entries for means of transport, you can store more detailed lot sizes and costs for a combination of product, external procurement relationship, and means of transport.
You can use the Supply Chain Engineer menu or the map itself to find information relevant to the transportation lane. For example, you can display a list of all products that are assigned to a specific lane.
SCM230 Lesson: Working with Master Data
Figure 37: External Procurement Relationship
To transfer products between two locations in the supply chain, for example, from a production plant to a distribution center, a transportation lane must exist between the two locations. Transportation lanes are created in SAP SCM for this reason.
Purchasing info records or outline agreements, using which you create price and supply agreements with certain suppliers in SAP ECC, can be transferred to the SAP SCM system as external procurement relationships. This information, as also from ECC special procurement keys, is then stored in the product-specific entries of the transportation lane.
In principle, transportation lanes are maintained on a product-specific basis.
But these transportation lanes can be used for all products. A transportation lane contains one or more means of transport that can be used to transport the product, such as a truck or barge. You can also define costs and duration times in the transportation lane. You can then set priorities to enable the system to make stock transfer decisions.
Unit 2: Master Data and Transaction Data in SNP SCM230
Figure 38: External Procurement Relationship
You can transfer SAP ECC purchasing info records to SAP SCM as external procurement relationships. Note that for data transfer to be successful, SCM must be able to recognize the source location corresponding to the vendor in the purchasing info record. As a result, the vendor must be transferred beforehand, if necessary.
Figure 39: Means of Transport
Means of transport refers to the type of vehicle that delivers products between locations.
SCM230 Lesson: Working with Master Data
Transportation between two locations is defined by transportation lanes that are assigned to a means of transport and by transportation-relevant attributes that have to be defined, such as shipment duration and transportation costs. A means of transport could be a truck, ship, or airplane.
You maintain the means of transport in SCM Customizing under Supply Chain Engineer (SCE) → Maintain Means of Transport.
The system can calculate the shipment duration of a means of transport based on the geographical coordinates of the locations. For this purpose, you need to define an average speed and an average distance factor for the means of transport. The distance factor indicates by how much the actual route exceeds the geographical distance between the locations. The shipment duration can be calculated from this. See the formula above.
The SNP optimizer can use shipment duration, transportation costs, and penalty costs for delays to decide which means of transport to select.
Figure 40: Creating a Transportation Lane
To use this means of transport when procuring all products, select All Products. If this indicator is not set, the means of transport only applies to the products that were explicitly assigned to it.
To enable the means of transport to be used by Supply Network Planning and PP/DS, choose aggregated planning. For TP/VS transportation planning, choose detailed planning. In this way you can also, for example, define transportation lanes for the return journeys of empty trucks.
Unit 2: Master Data and Transaction Data in SNP SCM230
Mass maintenance of multiple transportation lanes simplifies the maintenance of large quantities of supply chain transportation data. This function is useful if you need to maintain lanes between several start and destination locations;
for example, between selected plants and customers. The following activities are performed in mass maintenance:
• Generating multiple lanes simultaneously
• Assigning several products to a lane
• Calculating shipment durations
Figure 41: Transport Lot Size Profile
You can only maintain transport lot size profiles in product-dependent means of transport. For example, you can use transport lot size profiles to define that only full palettes are to be transported.
The rounding value specifies whether or not lot sizes are rounded to a whole number or to a multiple of a number; for example, 8 or 12 per layer on a pallet or 96 for a full pallet quantity.
SCM230 Lesson: Working with Master Data
Exercise 3: Transportation Lanes
Exercise Objectives
After completing this exercise, you will be able to:
• Identify the Master Data objects for a supply chain
• Describe the process for creating transportation lanes
Business Example
Master data is used to control planning for the Precision Pump Company. It is usually transferred from the OLTP system. In SCM you maintain SCM-specific fields, transportation lanes for stock transfers, and quota arrangements. As planning manager at Precision Pump Company, you need to identify the production horizon and the stock transfer horizon. You must also check the procurement type of the products.
Task:
The transportation lanes control procurement and stock transfer in SCM. Plant 1000 in Hamburg delivers products to distribution center 2400 in Milan. Display these transportation lanes for your model SNP-##.
1. Which means of transport travels between the locations? What is the duration time of the shipment and which products can be transported?
2. Use Mass Creation of Transportation Lanes to create a new transportation lane from plant 2300 to DC 2400 by copying the transportation lane from 1000 → 2400 in your model SNP-##.
3. Check the transportation lane you just created. Which means of transport travels between the locations? What is the duration time of the shipment and which products can be transported?
Unit 2: Master Data and Transaction Data in SNP SCM230
Solution 3: Transportation Lanes
Task:
The transportation lanes control procurement and stock transfer in SCM. Plant 1000 in Hamburg delivers products to distribution center 2400 in Milan. Display these transportation lanes for your model SNP-##.
1. Which means of transport travels between the locations? What is the duration time of the shipment and which products can be transported?
a) Select Advanced Planning and Optimization → Master Data → Transportation Lane → Transportation Lane.
b) Enter the data from the table below and click Display.
Field Value
Model Name SNP-##
Start Location 1000
Dest. Location 2400
c) The maintained means of transport is Truck.
d) The duration is 19 hours and 41 minutes.
e) All products can be transported.
Continued on next page
SCM230 Lesson: Working with Master Data
2. Use Mass Creation of Transportation Lanes to create a new transportation lane from plant 2300 to DC 2400 by copying the transportation lane from 1000 → 2400 in your model SNP-##.
a) Select Advanced Planning and Optimization → Master Data → Transportation Lane → Mass Creation of Transportation Lanes.
b) Enter the data in the table below and click Execute.
Field Value
c) A dialog box should appear telling you 1 transportation lane will be created. Respond by clicking YES.
3. Check the transportation lane you just created. Which means of transport travels between the locations? What is the duration time of the shipment and which products can be transported?
a) Select Advanced Planning and Optimization → Master Data → Transportation Lane → Transportation Lane.
b) Enter the data from the table below and click Display.
Field Value
Model Name SNP-##
Start Location 2300
Dest. Location 2400
c) The maintained means of transport is Truck.
d) The duration is 15 hours and 42 minutes.
e) All products can be transported.
Unit 2: Master Data and Transaction Data in SNP SCM230
Lesson Summary
You should now be able to:
• Identify the Master Data objects for a supply chain
• Create transportation lanes
SCM230 Lesson: SCM Product Master