Buyer's Consolidation in Export/Import 
In Export/Import, you use Buyer's Consolidation (BCO) to amalgamate orders from different suppliers that are all destined for one consignee. You can consolidate multiple export forwarding orders into an export freight booking. At the consolidation point, the packages are loaded into a container for shipping to the consignee.
For import, the system creates one import freight booking and one import forwarding order for each consignee. The import forwarding order contains a consolidation container and the items that were consolidated within this container.
Prerequisites
You have specified an agreement item for BCO including the calculation sheet for BCO.
Features
Export Forwarding Order
Export forwarding orders destined for the same consignee are eligible for BCO.
For each forwarding order that is to be consolidated, you must set the shipping type to Less than Container Load (LCL).
Each export forwarding order has a number of stages defined. For BCO, the stages between the shipper and the consolidation point can differ for each export forwarding order. The stages between the consolidation point and the consignee are identical.
Export Freight Booking
In the Export booking order you can flag a container as a BCO Container. Before assigning the export freight unit/forwarding orders the system checks whether all assigned forwarding orders have the same consignee. The system can only initiate a BCO process if all assigned forwarding orders have the same consignee.
When you set the status of the export freight booking to Shipped on Board in an ocean scenario or to Uplift Confirmed in an air scenario, the system creates an import freight booking and a single consolidated import forwarding order.
Import Freight Booking
The import freight booking contains one import forwarding order for each consignee. The system sets the initial document status for the import freight booking to Draft.
Import Forwarding Order
The import forwarding order includes the container from the export booking and also contains sub-items from the export freight booking.
For the consolidated import forwarding order, the system sets the initial shipping type set to Full Container Load (FCL).
As there are multiple shippers, the system displays the business partners and locations in the item details.
Both the actual and the ordered route are copied from the export documents. Since there are different routes per consolidated item, the actual and the ordered route is shown per forwarding order item.
The system sets the initial document status to Draft.
Charges
The system calculates charges using the agreement item configured for BCO. If you have not configured a specific agreement item for BCO, the system uses the standard calculation sheet for full container load transportation. For more information, seeBuyer's Consolidation .
Settlement
For settlement, the system creates one consolidated settlement for all the forwarding orders in the container item for the main carriage on the export side. On the import side, the system uses the information in the import forwarding order to create the settlement. The system uses an agreement line item configured for BCO. If such a line item does not exist, the system tries to find an agreement line item with a shipping type of FCL.
For more information, see Shipper's Consolidation Settlement
Example
As a carrier, you want to transport products from three different manufacturers from China to Germany. There are three export forwarding orders – one for each of the three products. You create an export freight booking and specify that it is to be handled in BCO mode. At Shanghai port, the pallets are loaded into one container. The container is then transported by sea to Hamburg. The system creates a single import freight booking for the container and a single import forwarding order. The import forwarding order contains an item for the container and sub items for each of the three export forwarding orders. In Hamburg the container is loaded onto a truck. The truck delivers the container to the consignee in Hanover.