Increase in utilization of Truck (vehicle), decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, enhanced integration between transportation and warehouse operations etc are some of the key performance indicators (KPI) in today’s supply chain. My blog with URL
https://blogs.sap.com/2018/03/14/direct-integration-between-embedded-ewm-tm-in-s4hana-improving-over... described some benefits of direct integration between SAP Transportation management ( TM ) and extended warehouse management (EWM) in S/4HANA . My present blog describes Multi-drop functionality with TM-EWM integration with EWM transportation unit (TU) and its business benefits.
Multi-drop means that a truck delivers the goods to different customers in its single trip. In a typical TM-EWM integration, Freight order in TM represents a truck (in case of road transport). Below image shows that the freight order (6100002458) has 3 stages with 3 destination locations 10100004, 10100011 and 10100003 representing 3 different customers representing a single truck delivering goods to customers A , B and C.
SAP TM can also select the optimum route as displayed in the map of transportation cockpit as in below image. Map within the transportation cockpit provides a good insight of the route to the transportation planner for the most effective planning.
This freight order from TM is transferred to EWM and is mapped to a transportation unit (TU) in EWM, in case of integration with LDAP (
Lightweight
Directory
Access
Protocol) notification. Below image shows that the TU (6100002458) in EWM is assigned with 3 deliveries with 3 Ship to parties 10100004, 10100011 and 10100003 and these information is transferred from TM to EWM through LDAP notification.
Hence, Transportation planner can combine deliveries (with same delivery windows) to multiple customers to a single truck instead of individual truck delivering to each customer and the Warehouse manager also gets to know about the multiple deliveries through TM-EWM integration.
Business benefits are
- achieve the maximum utilization of the truck
- reduce transportation cost
- reduce CO2 footprint
- simplify transportation and warehouse co-ordinations and operations
As of S/4HANA 2020 release, picking of the materials should be from a single EWM warehouse for Multi-drop with a single freight order for TM-EWM integration with EWM transportation unit (TU) or LDAP notification. Multi-pick and multi-drop scenario with a single freight order in TM-EWM integration with EWM TU is expected in future release, as per present SAP's roadmap.
This blog is based on my personal insights, tests and observation in S/4HANA 2020 release. Will appreciate your views / comment and feedback.