Shipment 

Definition

Document containing all the goods that are consolidated by a ship-from party and are then transported together from an issuing location (a plant, for example) to a destination location (a customer, for example). The shipment forms the basis for planning, executing, and monitoring the transportation of goods.

Use

You can create shipments both manually and automatically.

A shipment can have different characteristics that are determined by the shipment type as well as its relationship to other shipments. You define the shipment type in Customizing for Transportation Management (TM). It contains all the important control parameters for the shipment document. The following table shows the possible instances of shipments, the required settings, and the usages:

Instance	Settings	Use
Transportation request	●      In Customizing for TM under Define Shipment Type, you have not set the UI Changeable indicator for the shipment types Planned Transportation Request and Final Transportation Request. ●      In Customizing for TM under Maintain Settings for Determining Shipment Types, you have defined the shipment types Planned Transportation Request and Final Transportation Request as predecessor shipment types.	You can assign transportation requests to bills of lading or to freight documents.
Bill of lading	●      In Customizing for TM under Define Shipment Type, you have set the UI Changeable indicator for the shipment type Bill of Lading. ●      In Customizing for TM under Maintain Settings for Determining Shipment Types, you have defined the shipment type Bill of Lading as a successor shipment type.	●      You can assign transportation requests with common properties to a bill of lading, for example: ○       Transportation service provider ○       Ship-from party and ship-to party ○       Delivery date ●      You can manually set statuses in the bill of lading, for example, Transportation Completed. In this case, the relevant paper document (international bill of lading (CMR) or bill of lading according to VICS standard) is printed automatically. For more information about printing, see Post Processing Framework.

The following classification is relevant to the processes in the Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) component:

●      Planned shipment: Can still change with regard to type and size, for example, due to a subsequent delivery split in the Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) component.

●      Final shipment: Is fixed with regard to type and size, in other words, it is confirmed. Most of these shipments are already packed or loaded.

Structure

The header contains data such as:

●      Incoterms

●      Partners

●      Dates/times

●      Transportation details such as transportation mode, route, stops, and transit direction

The shipment items contain data such as locations, dates/times, packages, products, weight and volume, units of measure, and references to the original document, for example, the delivery.

Integration

The automatic creation of shipments occurs via an integration interface with goods accepted and shipping. You can also communicate shipments using IDocs. The IDoc structure of the shipment can be mapped to the EDIFACT standard IFTMIN (International Forwarding and/or Transport Message Instruction).

See also:

Freight Document

Creation of Freight Documents