Automatic Leg Determination 

Purpose

Automatic leg determination is an easy-to-use function that simplifies manual leg creation, or even eliminates the need for it. It does not involve optimization algorithms and also has no "geographical intelligence".

Automatic leg determination creates legs using simple rules that determine point of departure and destination as well as some leg data (service agent, shipping type, leg indicator, and shipment cost relevance for the leg).

The result of automatic leg determination is determined by different parameters you have set; this allows you to simulate various business scenarios.

The most important parameter is the type of leg determination, which can have five characteristics. For more information, see Leg Determination Categories.

The following data is taken from the shipment document:

Process Flow

Leg determination is generally executed as follows:

  1. The system checks whether leg determination can be carried out. Leg determination cannot be carried out, for example, if the leg determination type is set to ‘_’ (blank), if there are no deliveries in the shipment, or if the shipping types mentioned above have not been filled in (see step 6 for more details).

    2. In this case, the system responds with a message.

  2. The system analyzes the deliveries in the shipment. What is the point of departure and the destination for the deliveries?

A delivery can go from shipping point ‘0001’/ loading point ‘01’ to customer ‘123’ unloading point ‘ramp 15’. A return goes the opposite way, however. An inbound shipment goes from vendor ‘456’ to plant ‘0005’ to storage location ‘0004’.

Warehouse number and door are also taken into account where necessary.

Places (departure points and destinations of deliveries or of a leg, etc.) are given a unique identification number during leg determination; this number is then used in further processing. See also Identification of Places.
  1. The system analyzes the stages that exist in the document as they relate to the following questions: Which stages are legs, border crossing points, or load transfer points? How were they created (did they come from a route, were they entered manually, or are they from a previous leg determination run that was changed later, and so on)? This information is important, since leg determination can calculate legs connecting to a route (or manual legs).

You can display the history of a leg on the stage detail screen. For this purpose, select Management in this screen. You can tell which route a leg originated from and whether it was created manually or automatically.
  1. The system checks to see if this shipment is part of a transportation chain. This information can be determined from the leg indicator in the shipment header (not to be confused with the leg indicator in the leg of the shipment).

Leg indicator

Effect

‘4’ (direct leg) or ‘5’ (return leg)

The entire shipment process appears in one shipment document. The shipment document is not related to any other shipments.

‘1’ (preliminary leg) ‘2’ (main leg) or ‘3’ (subsequent leg)

This shipment is part of a transportation chain that is reflected in multiple shipment documents.

This information is important because, as in the case of a preliminary leg shipment, for example, the deliveries are not to be delivered directly to the customer, but to another destination where they are then transferred to the main shipment.

A delivery is brought by truck from shipping point ‘0001’ to Hamburg harbor as a preliminary leg shipment. The delivery is loaded onto a ship in Hamburg harbor. The ship then transports the delivery from Hamburg harbor to New York harbor (main leg). The delivery is then transferred once again and is shipped by train to customers in Chicago (subsequent leg).

For the preliminary shipment, the destination is not the customer in Chicago, but Hamburg harbor. A dialog box appears during leg determination that asks you to enter the destination. If the main leg shipment was created beforehand in the system, Hamburg is automatically taken as a default.
If a destination was entered, the original destination is replaced by the new one in all deliveries. If this does not occur, leg determination is terminated.
The same is valid for a subsequent leg shipment (leg indicator value ‘3’ in the shipment header), except that the point of departure for the deliveries is replaced by the destination harbor from the main leg, as an example.
  1. The system now carries out the actual leg determination. For more information, see Leg Determination Categories. A certain number of legs that must still be filled in with data appear.
  2. The system fills the legs it created with data. If there are legs that were entered or modified manually beforehand, their data is directly transferred.

If new legs are involved, the following data is re-determined:

(copied from the shipment header)

(default triggered by the shipment type)

If a preliminary shipment is concerned, the leg also gets this indicator (the same applies to subsequent shipment). If only one leg exists or if the leg links the delivery departure point directly to the destination, the leg is a direct leg. For all other shipments, the following applies:

If leg departure point = delivery departure point, then preliminary leg

If leg destination = delivery destination, then subsequent leg

If both apply = main leg

(copied from the shipment header)

Exception: In leg determination types ‘2’ to ‘4’, the shipping type preliminary leg is copied to preliminary legs and shipping type subsequent leg is copied to subsequent legs. In this case, these two shipping types can be maintained in the shipment header (on the Control tab page) and are suggested from the shipment type.

If no shipment type can be determined for a leg, the shipment type is not created. This characteristic can be used to better illustrate certain scenarios (for example, it could make sense to give the subsequent legs lower priority in the shipment since they are not important).
  1. The border crossing points and load transfer points taken out in step three are replaced. The system attempts to place them correctly.

There are two existing legs from A to G and from G to B. The border crossing point G is placed between the two legs.
  1. Finally, the assignments of deliveries to stages are determined. For more information, see Automatic Assignment of Deliveries.

Step 8 is the only step carried out during leg determination of type ‘0’. This means that no legs at all are determined. This may be useful if you want to enter all legs manually (if a scenario is very complicated, for example), but an automatic assignment of deliveries to stages should occur at the very least.

If the standard leg determination does not meet your needs, you can activate a customer enhancement (enhancement ‘V56SLDET’), in which you can create your own leg determination.

See also:

Automatic Assignment of Deliveries

Identification of Places

Leg Determination Categories

Executing Automatic Leg Determination