Resolving Carrier Mismatch Errors When planning Freight Units within SAP Transportation Management

[Saurabh_Goyal]

Transportation is a complex process, often requiring careful coordination of Transportation planners and various supply chain partners. This may require the Transportation planners to replan / reassign the demand (Freight Units) to the capacity (Freight order / Trucks). At times, one issue that can arise is a carrier mismatch error when trying to reassign Freight Units (FUs) to Freight Orders (FOs) after they have been unplanned. In this blog, we will explore this issue and offer some possible options to avoid this issue.

Let’s first look at the details of this issue.

When Freight Units are unplanned from an existing Freight Order, they become visible as unplanned in the SAP Transportation Management cockpit. However, attempting to reschedule them into a different freight order can result (under certain conditions) in a carrier mismatch error. This issue arises when the carrier for the freight units is "derived from predecessor documents," creating a discrepancy if the new Freight Order has a different carrier.

Here is a typical process that leads to this error:

1. Create a Sales order and a Freight Unit (FU) and, using the transportation cockpit, create a Road Freight Order (FO) based on the FU.
2. Open the FO and assign a carrier to it. Save your changes.
3. Delete the FO using the appropriate option within the Transportation Cockpit.
4. Next, create a new, empty FO with a different carrier and attempt to assign the initial FU to the newly created FO by selecting both and clicking "Assign Selected Items.”
5. Save the assignment process and encounter no error at this point.

However, the process can also take place when you have a Delivery created. Here the Freight unit is planned on the FO and the carrier may be assigned either to the delivery or to the Freight Order. Now, when the associated FU is unplanned from the FO, the carrier information remains attached to both the FU and the delivery. As you can see in the below screenshot it mentions “Derived from Predecessor Documents”.

At this point if an assignment is planned to a new FO with a different carrier it leads to the system giving an error “Freight unit xxxx cannot be assigned to Freight Order yyyy, carrier doesn't match”.

The system's retention of the carrier information can be due to various scenarios, such as the carrier being inherent in the delivery and thus needing to be retained despite the unplanning of Freight Order and Freight Unit. There can also be a scenario where the transportation planner may only be changing the Freight Order / Truck and continuing with the existing carrier.

To overcome this challenge, one might consider the following strategies

1. When Carrier was assigned within Freight order
   1. Remove the Carrier from FO1 Before Unplanning / Deletion: By clearing the carrier assignment before unplanning / deleting the FO, you ensure that the FU / delivery has no carrier association and can be reassigned freely.
   2. Assign Carrier After Planning: Once you have unplanned the FU and need to reassign it, place it on a FO without a carrier and then assign the carrier to FO post-planning.
2. When Carrier was assigned within Delivery
   1.  Delete Carrier from Delivery: Ensure that after FO Unplanning / deletion, the FU and delivery have no carrier specified. This allows reassignment to another FO without issues.

While carrier mismatch is a standard behavior that can occur due to multiple scenarios (some of which are mentioned above), understanding the underlying system logic and utilizing these strategies can facilitate smoother freight unit planning and assignment processes. Kindly note that there can be other options also that can be explored.

Should these solutions not address all nuances of your case, consider submitting a feature request on the [SAP Customer Influence Portal] (https://me.sap.com/notes/0002963059).