This activity is used to specify the different shipment types that are used in your company. The NA (Not Automatic), NR (Create New Shipment at Release), AR (Add to Existing Shipment at Release), NP (Create New Shipment at Pick List Creation), and AP (Add to Existing Shipment at Pick List Creation) shipment types are set up as part of the installation, however, these types can be changed and deleted as desired. The task of entering or modifying shipment types is to be performed by a system administrator or an equivalent personnel, and should be considered carefully.
The shipment type is used to control the shipment flow. The shipment processes of your company determine how the shipment type should be defined to get a streamlined and effective process. Shipment types can be entered per site, per customer delivery address or per supply chain relation as a default.
In the context of customer orders the default shipment type defined per supply chain relation has the highest priority, then per customer delivery address and last per site. The default shipment type will be retrieved to customer orders and shipments but it can be changed manually if required. The control of the progress is handed over from the order type to the shipment type as soon as a shipment is created.
The shipment type controls which events in the shipment flow are performed automatically and which events must be performed manually. This is controlled by selecting the Stop After field for an event. If, for example, you select the Print Pick List and Report Picking events, this means that you must pick report the parts and complete the shipment manually, but all the other events in the shipment flow will be done automatically.
In addition, the shipment type can be used to trigger optional events at the execution of an event in the main flow. This is done by connecting optional events to the main event. If you, for instance, want to generate a handling unit structure and print transport labels at pick list creation, these optional events are connected to the Create Pick List event.
If you select the Use Shipment Inventory check box, then shipments associated with this shipment type will use a shipment inventory location once the items are picked, for the purpose of collecting or staging the goods together before delivery. Note that a shipment inventory location will be used if a shipment has a default shipment location entered, regardless of whether the check box is selected or not.
If you select the Keep remaining reservation at Partial Picking check box, then when you partly pick a pick list line the reservation will be kept and you will be able to pick the remaining quantity on the same pick list later. This is useful if you are not able to pick everything at the same time due to some constraint (e.g., what you pick does not fit on the forklift or in the handling unit you pack into), then you can pick multiple times until you have picked everything.
If you select the Online Processing check box, the steps are processed online (preventing you from doing any further work until the shipment events are processed). If the check box is cleared, the shipment events are processed as a background job, allowing you to continue with other work in the application. Note that if you are working with large shipments with many lines and shipment types that perform a lot of events automatically, you might experience poor performance while processing the events online.
If the Approve Shipment before Delivery check box is selected, the shipment delivery will be halted where additional documents are required, until such documents have been received.
The Shipment Creation field specifies whether shipments should be created automatically based on a certain triggering point in the source object. In the context of customer orders, you can automatically create a shipment when releasing a customer order or when creating a pick list. The parameter will be defaulted to the customer order via the shipment type.
Optionally you can define consolidation rules used when order lines are connected automatically to shipments. The following consolidation parameters are available: source ref 1, planned ship date, planned delivery date, route, forwarder, reference ID, dock code, sub dock code and to location. So for instance, by adding planned ship date and route as consolidation parameters, only order lines with the same planned ship date and route will be consolidated automatically into the same shipment. The consolidation rules are not considered when you manually connect an order line to a shipment.
This activity has no prerequisites.