If a customer orders a full container and you have already defined the container items in the forwarding order, the system can create a container unit instead of a freight unit during freight unit building. The relevant item in the forwarding order must be of type Passive Vehicle Resource and you must have entered a transportation unit in the freight unit building rule.

If you have not already created the container items in the forwarding order, you can use the container unit as a consolidation document. This means that a freight unit is created based on a product item, for example. You then assign this product freight unit to the container unit. Alternatively, you can assign the freight unit directly to a container that you have created in the freight document.

You can define several main items for container units. You can also work with multi-items (see Items).

A container unit must be assigned to a freight document before you can carry out the follow-on processes. You can assign the individual stages for the container unit to one or more freight documents. You cannot subcontract container units. The container unit is used only for logistical purposes and for the assignment of different subcontracting documents.

Within the transportation unit type, you configure the most important settings for the container unit. For more information, see Customizing for Transportation Management under  Freight Order Management Transportation Unit Define Transportation Unit Types .