Capability of Reduced freight cost with Grouping Rule for collective settlement in SAP Transportation Management (TM)

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Freight cost is increasing in recent past and most of the Transportation planners are trying their best to reduce the ‘Freight Spend’ with smart ideas. Recently, I worked on a requirement for a Retail customer to provide a system solution in SAP Transportation Management (TM) so that the Collective Rate (say for example Freight spend for a week) is less than the total freight costs for seven shipments in that week for a particular destination. A truck (or shipment) goes daily to particular customers and the shipper pays to the carrier on weekly basis. Requirement is to pay less than 7X euro for 7 shipments each with freight cost of X Euro.

SAP TM has a functionality of ‘Grouping Rule’ in collective settlement. Prototyped to demo the solution to the customer and the solution has subsequently been accepted. My present blog is to describe SAP TM’s functionality of ‘Grouping Rule’ in collective settlement.

Prototyped with 2 freight orders as below for the sake of simplicity. Freight cost for 1^st freight order with 6.2 Ton is 80.60 Euro and for 2^nd freight order with 9.3 Ton is 111.60 Euro considering the below rate scale on gross weight.

Individual Freight orders with 6.2 Ton and 9.3 Ton have been shown in below image .

Now, collective settlement has been done for these 2 freight orders and the system has grouped the two freight orders with the reduced rate (10 Euro/Ton) for the higher weight scale on cumulated weight (6.2+9.3=15.5 Ton) for the week as in below image.

There are 2 main configurations for this Grouping rule functionality.

1. Grouping Rule is to be defined in transaction /SCMTMS/TCM_RULES. Freight orders are being grouped by Destination location in this case as required by the customer. There are other parameters (Calculation base) also possible.

 

2. Above configured Grouping Rule is to be assigned in Grouping rule for the relevant charge type in Calculation sheet as in below image.

 

Also note that this Grouping Rule works only with calculation at Header level (i.e not at item or stage level) in calculation profile.

This Grouping rule functionality enables the optimization of freight cost (obviously it also depends on the freight agreement or contract with the carrier). And it works for both LTL and FTL scenarios.

This Grouping functionality is available in both SCM TM and embedded TM in S/4HANA. This blog is based on my personal insights, observation and test in SAP S/4HANA 2021 release. Will appreciate your views / comment and feedback.

 

[former_member613399]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge

[aarokiasamy]

Hello Mrinal,

Thank you for sharing this.

Could you please confirm how the 2 FOs stay consistent with the one FSD? What happens to their invoicing status? Since the rates on the individual FOs (are 12 & 13 Euros) and the collective FSD (is 10 Euros) are different. Will both FOs be updated with rates as per FSD?

[IndraneelM]

Following

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

Hi Amudhan,

Good question. FOs' are NOT updated with reduced rate from FSD. It is a limitation with standard SAP.

With regards,

Mrinal

[aarokiasamy]

Got it. thank you for your response!

[former_member807514]

Thank you for your post !

I have a question please -  In the calculation profile you define the level -

in this case "1 calculation at header level"

my problem is the calculation profile is assigned at purchasing organisation level in PPOCE by using the charge profile ID but sometimes in the same calculation sheet we need to have calculation at header level for one condition type and calculation at stage level for another. How can you manage this example ? in this case there is only one purchasing organisation (and one charge profile ID and one calculation profile).

Thank you

 

[former_member783547]

Thank you for your answer.

Unfortunately, the system still calculates with higher rates.

I defined new Grouping Rule for Charge Calculation Resolution Base/ Grouped by: DESTLOC and for Calculation Sheet I set: Calculation Resolution Base: PRODUCT.

I set also Calculation level: 1 Calculation at Header level

Any reason, why system calculate it not correctly?

[kalyan-barla]

Hello Mrinal,

Thanks for this blog.  have tried to use grouping rule for a business case and I tried to use the conditon in it with type, TCM_GROUP however it is limited for only TRQ Objects.  I am not sure why the conditon type is limited to TRQ while the logic of grouping rule can be used at a Freght order level.  Could ypu please check this and let me know if I have to raise a ticket for it?

 

Thanks and Regards

Kalyan

[Former Member]

Hi Mrinal,

Thanks for sharing. One question, please: where did you put the 'week' information? How does the system know to group by week or month, etc.?

Thanks & Regards

Manas

[former_member835162]

Hello baralis

You can also assign a calculation profile to the following business partner roles other than business org unit.

• Sold-to party

• Ship-to party

• Carrier

• Vendor

If you assign a calculation profile to an organizational unit and to a business partner role, the system applies the calculation profile for the business partner role.

 

Thanks

Vaibhav Bansod

[former_member807514]

Thank you Vaibhav Bansod !

 

[former_member812014]

Is there any SAP documentation on this limitation "Grouping Rule works only with calculation at Header level (i.e not at item or stage level) in calculation profile." ?

[archanadevara]

Hi Mrinal,

Thanks a lot for the wonderful document.

I have a query , we have a requirement to have a grouping rule set on delivery date and destination which is working fine.  And then we need to consider the grouped Freight orders and get the max distance among them  inorder to fetch the higher rate table with consolidated volume and max distance.   For this we have used a custom calculation base ( to get max distance among the grouped FOs).   But  the helper class on calc base is getting looped for each FO and recalculating the distance.

for example.  i have 3 FOs  where  distances are 100, 200, 300.  My requirement is to fetch 300 as max distance.  But  custom cacl base is taking it as  900. can you pls advise how to avoid this? and also how to  fetch a higher rate table based on this.

Thanks & Regards,

Archana