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former_member186731
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Today's MKS deals with the required setup for the Package Building function (see MKS 53). Actually, this is pretty easy. In the TM customizing under SAP Transportation Management -> Transportation Management -> SCM Basis -> Pack -> Package Building you find the activity 'Define Package Building Profile'. Here you define a profile to steer the package building function. It enables to switch on/off certain process steps, defines specific behaviour especially when building mixed packages and in general offers some generic attributes, that can serve as default but can be overwritten by product specific settings.

To give a few examples of the parameters:

Process Products by Layer: This parameter can turn off the creation of full product packages. By default, this is very seldom required, but gives a mixed package building logic more freedom. For example a certain customer always requires a specific product combination (even when ordering a high quantity), this can then be implemented in an enhancement receiving a full set of products.

Keep Layers Together: When building mixed packages, the parameter controls if a product can be split over multiple mixed packages. This might in some situations result in a better and more efficient plan. But in more warehouse driven scenarios it might not be efficient to process a product twice for 2 packages. So it can be turned off. (note that this behavior can be defined also more specific on product/business partner level).

Ignore Product Height: When consolidating leftover products not filling a complete package nor a complete product layer, the system tries to build mixed layers combining products with the same height. This step can be skipped in case the product height is not important. Then all of the leftover product quantities can be combined directly resulting in standard in non-stackable layers.

For a standard scenario, I would think you only need 1 profile. Technically it is of course possible to maintain multiple here. Note that those profiles are SCMB, so could be shared among different applications.

To activate the package building in SAP Transportation Management, you have to set the PB profile within the Freight Unit Building rule. As soon as you have done that, the FUB will pass the ordered product items to the Package Builder. Depending on your product specific defintions, the result can be either a product - package item hierarchy or the same product items unpackaged.

In addition, you can define for the FUB how many package items shall be put into a single FU at most. This is especially important considering that the FUs are input for the automated transportation planning later. In case you make your FU too large, the consolidation potential when selecting the right truck resource might not be leveraged. In case you make a 1:1 relation FU to pallet/package, it might blow up your runtime.

Remember, the FUB rule can be defined by Order (TRQ) Type, so the process can be de-/activated for different scenarios.

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