Route Determination
The aim of route determination is to find the most suitable route from a large number of routes. Route determination is executed in the routing guide. It runs automatically in the background.
A report is available for simulating route determination (see Simulation of Route Determination).
Integration
Route determination is integrated with the following components and systems:
Task |
System |
|---|---|
Perform the Global ATP check and backorder processing |
SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) |
Create sales orders and perform the Global ATP check |
SAP CRM and SAP APO |
Perform the Global ATP check when converting unchecked deliveries into checked deliveries |
ERP system and SAP APO |
Make route-relevant changes, for example, change delivery date/time or goods recipient |
Delivery processing in EWM |
If you want to perform dangerous goods checks, you must ensure that route determination is integrated with the ERP component EH&S. |
Environment, Health, and Safety (EH&S) |
Prerequisites
For route determination, you have made the following settings:
You have defined the following master data:
Locations
Transportation lanes
Zones (see Zone)
Routes (see Route)
Carrier profile for the routing guide (see Carrier Profile for the Routing Guide)
General transportation cost profile (see General Transportation Cost Profile)
You have defined the means of transport and, if necessary, hierarchical relationships between means of transport in the SCM Basis master data.
You have defined a transportation zone hierarchy in transaction
Hierarchy Maintenance
(/SAPAPO/RELHSHOW
).If you want to perform route determination within a cross-docking context, you must define cross-docking routes. For more information, see Cross-Docking Route and Route Determination as Part of Cross-Docking.
To enable the integration of route determination with the components and systems listed above, you must select the
Activate RG
checkbox in Customizing for SCM Basis under
Routing Guide
General Settings for Route Determination
.If you want the master data in various systems to always have the same status, you must configure the distribution of master data. For more information, see Distribution of Master Data.
Features
Route determination comprises the following steps:
The system determines possible trips from the available routes. When doing this, the system can take into account the assignment of carriers to the geographical data, such as legs.
The system calculates the start or end dates/times for the trips found. When doing this, it takes into account calendars and times for the activities departure, transportation, arrival, and transshipment:
Forward scheduling: the system uses a start date/time (for example, order creation date/time) to calculate the end date/time (for example, delivery date/time).
Backward scheduling: the system uses an end date/time (for example, requested delivery date/time) to calculate the start date/time.
Dangerous goods check
The system first checks if a product is classified as dangerous goods. The system then checks if the product is allowed to be transported within a series of jurisdictions, for example, countries using a certain means of transport. These two checks are performed in EH&S services.
If the product is classified as being dangerous goods and is allowed to be transported with the means of transport concerned, the system checks if the assigned carriers can accept dangerous goods. It rejects all carriers that do not offer dangerous goods transportation along the legs used.
For more information, see SAP Library for SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) on SAP Help Portal at
http://help.sap.com
SAP Business Suite
SAP Extended Warehouse Management
EH&S Services
Dangerous Goods Management
.Calculation of Transportation Costs
The system calculates the transportation costs for all the trips found. When doing this, it takes into consideration fixed transportation costs, distance-dependent costs (based on the transportation distance), time-dependent costs (based on the transportation duration), and weight-dependent costs. It also takes into consideration penalty costs for a premature or delayed delivery and a premature or delayed pickup. The costs that you have defined are evaluated by the system in the following order:
Costs from the carrier profile
Costs from the general transportation cost profile or costs that you have defined for transportation lanes
You can use the Business Add-In (BAdI)
/SCTM/EX_RG_COST
to determine alternative values or to adjust the values determined by the routing guide.Additional filtering
If you want to use your own criteria to perform additional filtering on the trips that have been found up to now, you can implement the BAdI
/SCTM/EX_RG_FILTER
.Valuation
You can set up the route determination to consider different trip attributes for evaluation and sorting of the determined routes. The routing guide can determine the most cost effective or the quickest route. It is also possible to apply rules regarding the location priority.
If you request the most cost effective route, the routing guide considers for each request only trips with complete cost information, in other words, trips for which you have defined costs for all the legs. If no such trips exist, the system falls back on trips with incomplete cost information. The system then sorts the trips according to the costs determined. If the system finds multiple trips with identical costs, it sorts the trips by date. In the case of forward scheduling, the system gives preference to the earliest start date. In the case of backward scheduling, it gives preference to the latest end date.
If the quickest route is requested, the routing guide sorts the results according to the determined total transportation time.
In cases where route determination runs in the background, the system returns the best result only. It rejects the remaining results.