Multi Drop meaning delivery to multiple customers in a single trip is very common in today’s supply chain and specially for retail customers. Refer my earlier blogs on multi drop with transportation management ( TM ) and Extended warehouse management (EWM) in below links https://blogs.sap.com/2020/07/23/capability-of-multi-drop-with-sequential-load-planning-in-transport... and https://blogs.sap.com/2021/07/31/multi-drop-to-customers-with-tm-and-ewm-integration-with-transporta....
Loading sequence (i.e sequence of loading of pallets to the customers from the warehouse) is very important for multi drop scenarios. In most situations, Pallets for the last customer should be loaded first to the truck or in LIFO (Last in First out) sequence. My present blog is to describe the functionality of ‘Loading sequence’ in TM and EWM in S/4HANA.
Considered only 2 customers for the sake of simplicity as depicted in the below image. Pallets for customer B shall be loaded first to the truck and then the pallets for the customer A.
TM can propose packages for the deliveries or freight units (Refer my blog in link https://blogs.sap.com/2020/03/31/capability-of-package-building-in-freight-order-in-embedded-transpo... for package building functionality of TM) and can also indicate the ‘Loading sequence’ along with the positions in the truck as shown in the below image. Truck will drop to the customer A (0010100011) first and hence their pallets are to be loaded last.
This Loading sequence from freight order in TM can also be transferred to Transportation unit (TU) in EWM as shown in below image. Last delivery is 80002789 (as per the Loading sequence in EWM TU ) for the customer A 10100011 . EWM also shows the details of row and stack.
Many customers have done custom enhancements to determine this loading sequence in TM and EWM. Now, this loading sequence is determined and displayed in Loading plan in freight order in TM and the same is transferred to TU in EWM as a part of standard SAP solution in S/4HANA 2021 release.
Business benefits are
- System support for sequential loading and unloading
- Simplification in transportation and warehouse co-ordinations and operations
This blog is based on my personal insights, tests and observation in S/4HANA 2021 release. Will appreciate your views / comment and feedback.
Thanks to author Mrinal Kanti Roy
