In this article I describe how routes are used in outbound deliveries in SAP EWM and answer the following questions:
- What is a route?
- What kinds of route are there?
- What are routes for?
- How are routes and the other relevant master data maintained in the system?
The information applies to SAP EWM 9.1.
What is a route?
A route is an object in SAP EWM that represents a sequence of logistical delivery chains. In SAP EWM terms, one delivery chain (or leg) is a Leg. One leg consists of a starting point of departure, a final point of delivery and intermediate stops for unloading goods, all within one mode of transport or one carrier. If the movement from one point to another is carried out by different modes of transport or by different carriers, then in SAP EWM these are two legs.
The picture shows route R00010, which consists of two chains: R00010-LEG1 and R00010-LEG2:
What kinds of route are there?
Routes in SAP EWM can be simple or cross-docking routes.
A simple route is a route that has a leg from one point of departure to just one point of delivery.
If legs from one point of departure to several points of delivery are possible, or legs from two different points of departure to one point of delivery, then such a route is called a cross-docking route, and such a point of departure is called a cross-docking warehouse.
The picture shows 6 simple routes and 2 cross-docking routes:
What are routes for?
Routes in SAP EWM are used to determine the possible delivery paths for goods at minimum cost. A possible carrier can be determined for each leg of a route. SAP EWM maintains basic transport cost data for every carrier. During route determination SAP EWM calculates the transport costs and picks the route with the lowest cost.
Routes are also used in SAP EWM to determine the consolidation group, that is, the indicator for packing goods together. This is needed, for example, so that goods for one recipient that are delivered by different routes are picked into different shipping handling units.
On top of that, the route can be used in SAP EWM to determine the staging areas at the doors for the handling units that have been picked:
How are routes and the other relevant master data maintained in the system?
Maintaining locations and SCUs (Supply Chain Units)
SAP EWM uses locations as the points of departure and delivery. If the business partners are transferred from SAP ERP via CIF, the location can be created automatically. If the ERP system is not SAP, the location has to be created manually.
Locations are maintained in the SAP Easy Access menu:
Extended Warehouse Management - Master Data - Shipping and Receiving - Shipping and Receiving – Location
Transaction: /SAPAPO/LOC3
When creating one you have to specify the name of the location (for convenience it is best to use the partner name) and the location type. For a ship-to party it is 1010 (customer).
To determine the recipient's location during route determination, it is enough to specify the business partner in the BusinessPartner field and the address data on the Address tab (the data relevant for the route is the country, the region, the postal code and the city).
Maintaining routes
Routes are maintained in transaction /SCTM/ROUTE, path in the SAP menu:
Extended Warehouse Management - Master Data - Shipping and Receiving - Route Determination - Maintain Route
At route header level you specify:
Route – the name of the route
Description – the description of the route
Validity (From, To) – the validity period of the route
DGCheck (Dangerous Goods Check) – if set, a check for dangerous goods is performed.
DG Group – the rules for transporting dangerous goods together.
GTS GeoGr – the Geographical Group, specified if there is an integration with GTS.
CD Location – the location (SCU) of the cross-docking warehouse, specified if the route is a cross-docking route.
Restrictions – weight, volume and dimension restrictions on the products being transported. Volume and weight restrictions can be specified either for an individual request type or for all of them at once.
In the middle part of the screen, on the Leg tab, you have to specify the legs of the route in the required sequence. You specify:
- The number of the leg within the route
- The name of the leg (unique across all routes)
- The description of the leg
- The start location
- The end location
- The mode of transport
Once a leg has been added, at least two stops for the leg – the first and the last – are added automatically in the lower part of the screen. You can add intermediate unloading points if the carrier and the mode of transport do not change during the trip (this still counts as one leg):
The following settings can be made at the level of each stop:
Mand./Opt. – the indicator for a mandatory or an optional stop.
Restrictions – volume and weight restrictions.
Transp.Mode (Exp.) – the mode of transport the border will be crossed with.
Export Relevancy – the export type
On the Carrier tab you can manually specify one or several possible carriers for each leg:
And on the Departure Calendar tab you can specify the departure calendar for this leg; that departure date is then copied into the delivery as the date of departure from the warehouse:
On the CD Routes tab you add the components of a cross-docking route and specify the direction of the route – inbound or outbound:
On the Request Types tab you can restrict the selection of this route by document type:
On the Lead Times tab you specify the minimum time needed to get an outbound delivery request ready for dispatch. For example, if the route departs at 18:00 and the lead time is 1 hour, then an outbound delivery request created after 17:00 will be shipped with the next departure of that route:
On the Shipping Condition tab you can restrict the selection of this route by the shipping condition, which is determined for each outbound delivery order item. Example values would be «Road», «Air», «Customer pickup», «Courier delivery» and so on.
On the Trans.Groups tab you can restrict the selection of this route by the «Transportation group» field, which is defined in the product master record. Example values would be «Shipping on pallets», «Shipping in cages» and so on.
Maintaining zones
Zones are used when there is no need to create a separate leg or route for every individual recipient; they serve to combine several recipients into one whole. Zones also make it possible not to create a location in the system for a recipient and to use their address data for route determination instead. In that case the zone contains several recipients but acts as a single location. This considerably simplifies route maintenance in the system.
Zones are maintained in transaction /SCTM/ZONE, path in the SAP Easy Access menu:
Extended Warehouse Management - Master Data - Shipping and Receiving - Route Determination – Maintain Zones for Routes:
Zone – the name of the zone
Description – the description of the zone
Zone type – the type of zone. The options are:
P – a zone determined on the basis of the recipient's postal code
D – a zone determined by specific SCUs (recipient locations)
L – by default in EWM every leg of a route is also a zone and has its own technical location in the system.
R – a zone determined on the basis of the recipient's region code
M – a zone that includes one or several of the parameters listed above, on the basis of which the zone can be determined.
In the middle part of the screen, on the corresponding tabs, you add the data the zone will be determined from when the optimal route is being searched for:
Zone-Location – on this tab you add the SCUs of specific recipients; used in zones of type D
Zone-Postal Code – on this tab you add the postal codes of the recipients; used in zones of type P
Zone-Region – on this tab you add the region codes of the recipients; used in zones of type R
Zone-Leg – nothing can be added on this tab, it displays the names of the legs this zone is used in
Route – this tab displays the routes this zone is used in.
Maintaining the carrier profile
For a carrier to be determined for each logistical chain along with the route, its profile has to be defined in the system.
The profile is maintained in the SAP Easy Access menu:
Extended Warehouse Management - Master Data - Shipping and Receiving - Route Determination - Carrier Profile for Routing Guide (transaction /SCTM/TSPP).
Note: for the profile to appear in the transaction, you first have to create the partner in transaction BP with the role «Carrier».
The Partner Data area – contains the name and description of the carrier
The Address and Contact areas – contain the address and contact data of the carrier respectively
TSP Performance (Transportation Service Provider Performance) – the performance of the carrier. It is used when determining the Transportation Lane with the strategy:
- Costs
- Costs*Priority
- Costs+Priority
According to the SAP help, the formula for the final costs taking performance into account looks like this:
Costs = Costs / (TSP Performance * 100)
Judging by the fact that the field has only one decimal place, the performance step is quite coarse. With TSPP = 0.2 the costs are reduced by a factor of 20. Either that, or the help is wrong and the correct formula is Costs/TSPP.
Continuous move – the field is not used in EWM.
On the Transportation tab you can assign the carrier directly to a delivery leg:
On the Freight Code Set tab you specify the sets of freight codes used for communication with other carriers:
On the Product Freight and Trans.Groups tabs you can add the freight groups and transportation groups of goods the carrier works with. These groups are assigned to the product in its master record.
On the Fixed Transport tab you can specify a fixed delivery cost for a particular mode of transport:
On the Dimension Costs tab you can specify transport costs measured by criteria such as:
- The distance of the trip
- The duration of the transport
- The weight of the cargo
In the following parts I will describe:
- What methods of route determination exist
- What data routes are determined from
- What the route selection algorithm is
- What settings have to be made in the system for route determination
- At what point route determination is called
- How route determination can be tested