Route Determination in the Delivery 

Use

Delivery processing calls the routing guide for automatic route determination. This determines the route and sends it back to delivery processing. You can also manually enter or change a route on the user interface of the delivery.

Delivery processing executes route checks and, in doing so, it determines whether the route found in the routing guide or the route that was manually entered in the delivery is valid for delivery processing.

When working with automatic route determination, you can use Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) to automatically find and check the route and transportation information in the outbound delivery request, the outbound delivery order, and the outbound delivery (see Special Features for Outbound Delivery Objects).

Integration

For actual route determination, EWM uses the routing guide.

Prerequisites

●      You made the settings for route determination.

●      The following delivery data has been specified:

○       The supply chain unit of the warehouse at the delivery header

Route determination uses this supply chain unit as a source location.

○       At least one item with an entry for product, a quantity, weight and volume

○       At least one item with a planned goods issue date (for forwards scheduling) or a planned delivery date at header level (for backwards scheduling)

○       If you are using your own document types, the route status must be activated at header level so that route determination can set this status.

○       If the following delivery data is available, route determination uses it as an additional constraint during route determination:

■       The carrier, if the determination indicator is not initial or the carrier has been specified by EWM.

■       The means of transport, if the determination indicator is not initial or the means of transport has been specified by EWM.

■       The route itself, if the determination indicator is not initial or the route has been specified by EWM.

■       The shipping conditions of all items, if all the items have the same shipping conditions.

Features

Route Determination

Route determination attempts to find a route in delivery processing that corresponds to the delivery data, for example, the product, quantity, or date/time. For this, route determination calls the routing guide, either with a predefined route or it does not supply a route for the routing guide. You either enter the predefined route manually or an external system, such as SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) assigns a route to EWM. Route determination in the delivery does not overwrite any routes manually entered. You define the route determination status in Customizing for EWM:

●      Route Determination is Always Active (<blank>).

●      Automatic Route Determination Only in Case of Initial Route

●      Automatic Route Determination Inactive

●      Route Determination Inactive

For more information, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) for EWM under Goods Issue Process → Outbound Delivery → Route Determination → Activate or Deactivate Route Determination.

You can directly enter constraints for route determination in the outbound delivery.

Simulation of Route Determination

You can simulate route determination, that is, check which routes EWM finds for specific data or which routes EWM approves as valid after the route check. For more information, see Simulation of Route Determination.

Priority

If, while using the data of the relevant items (see Execution of Automatic Route Determination), route determination finds one or more valid routes for the start date/time and the supply chain unit, it uses the route with the highest priority. The routing guide sends the priority together with the route to delivery processing. Die Priorität wird ausgehend vom verwendeten Kostenprofil gesetzt.

Data Use

If route determination automatically finds a valid route, you specify a valid route, or an external system transfers a valid route to EWM, route determination copies certain data to the delivery and, if necessary, sets further delivery data automatically. The data automatically set can be data that route determination also determines, for example, delivery date/time or means of transport. For more information about the data that delivery processing uses or copies in route determination, see Data Use in Route Determination.

Automatic Route Determination

If you have not yet entered a route (that is, the field for the route is empty) or you have changed data that is route-dependent (for example, item quantities), route determination executes automatic route determination. For more information, see Execution of Automatic Route Determination.

Route Status

Route determination sets a route status at header level depending on the route determination. You can view this on the user interface of the outbound delivery order or the outbound delivery in the detail view on the Status tab page under the Route Determination status type.

Outbound Delivery Objects

In addition to the features mentioned here, route determination handles the various outbound delivery objects differently. For more information, see Special Features for Outbound Delivery Objects.

Route Determination in Transportation Cross-Docking

In a transportation cross-docking process (TCD process), route determination uses the supply chain unit of the final ship-to party as the destination location instead of the supply chain unit of the ship-to party. If the route contains a TCD location, route determination enters this as the ship-to party in the delivery. The previous ship-to party becomes the final ship-to party. Route determination proceeds in the same way with the delivery date, which means that route determination works with a delivery date and a final delivery date. Route determination enters the route to the next TCD location as the route for the delivery. This also applies to a route that is specified manually. Furthermore, route determination also specifies the goods issue date/time at the TCD location in the delivery header.

If route determination cannot identify a TCD location during a new route determination, it deletes the TCD-specific data from the delivery.

For more information, see Route Determination as Part of Cross-Docking.

Route Check

EWM checks in delivery processing whether a valid route exists for the delivery data. If you specify a route manually or deactivate automatic route determination, EWM then carries out a further check to determine whether the route that you have specified manually is valid for the delivery data.

Activities

If you want to manually trigger route determination, on the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Extended Warehouse Management → Delivery Processing → Outbound Delivery → Maintain Outbound Delivery Order or Maintain Outbound Delivery and then the Route pushbutton.

For more information about the individual settings for the user interface, see Route Determination on the User Interface.