Cartonization

To increase productivity and prevent waste during packing, you can use cartonization to automatically determine which packages to use to pack products for shipment. Cartonization accommodates multiple cartons per line item and multiple products per carton. Carton information is tracked at the header and line level. It can be included on pick tickets and invoices, and in AdvanceShipNotice and Shipment BODs.

Cartonization is enabled per warehouse in Product Warehouse Description Setup. You can opt to automatically or manually assign cartons for sales orders or warehouse transfers, or both. You can limit the automatic assignment of cartons for warehouse transfers to direct orders. The cartonization setting for a warehouse can be overridden per customer in Customer Setup or per product in Product Setup or Product Catalog Setup.

Automatic cartonization is applied when you print tick tickets through the Sales Entry Pick Tickets Report or Transfer Entry Print WT Report, or when you print on demand. After you pick the order, use the Product Cartonization Center Entry (Cartonization Center) function to process the cartons for shipment.

In the Cartonization Center, you can review the cartons that were automatically created for an order and the contents of each carton. A shipping ID is assigned to the order and a carton ID is assigned to each carton for the order. When you ship the cartons, you can specify the billable weight, freight amount, package number, and tracking ID. You can also indicate if shipping is free. In addition to shipping the cartons, you can also unship and stage them.

You can also perform these actions in the Cartonization Center:

  • Manually or automatically assign cartons for warehouses, customers, or products that require manual assignment of cartons
  • Delete cartons that were automatically assigned
  • Move products from one carton to another
  • Combine multiple orders that are being shipped to the same location

After you ship the packages in the Cartonization Center, you must then ship the order or transfer in Sales Shipping Feedback Entry or Transfer Shipping Entry. You can use the quick ship feature. By design, you must add the freight amount from the Cartonization Center to the order or transfer before you ship it.

Activation and setup

To activate cartonization, select the Use Cartonization option in SA Administrator Options-System-General. Activation causes the cartonization fields, tabs, and sections in related functions throughout Distribution SX.e to be available. Access to Product Cartonization Center Entry and Product Cartonization Package Setup is controlled by operator security. These functions are available even if the feature is not activated.

By default, cartonization for warehouses is not enabled and cartonization for customers defers to the warehouse settings. If you do not perform the required setups, then activating cartonization does not affect Distribution SX.e.

Packages are set up per warehouse in the Product Cartonization Package Setup. Package records include information such as dimensional measurements, cube and weight capacity, and tare weight. You can indicate if the package is for non-dimensional products such as liquids. You can also assign a package type and package group to the package. Package types identify standard and non-standard packages. Standard packages are used to ship most products inventory and catalog products, whereas non-standard packages are used to meet special packaging requirements for products. Similar non-standard packages can be assigned to a package type group. Package types and package type groups are set up in SA Table Code Value Setup.

Products are set up for cartonization in Product Setup and Product Catalog Setup. Dimensional measurements, weight, and cube value on the General tab are used for package selection. Additional package-related settings are also available on a new Cartonization tab. You can specify packing instructions and packing restrictions. You can also indicate if the product is a special dimensional product that requires manually packing or if the product can be shipped without additional packaging. When the product requires a non-standard package, you must specify the package type. You are not required to specify a package type if the product can be shipped in a standard package.

These types of products can also be included in cartonization:

  • Products with a converted unit

    Additional setup is required in Product Extended Unit Conversion Setup. Automatic assignment of cartons is based on the unit that is specified on the sales order or warehouse transfer.

  • Nonstock products without a product catalog record

    Nonstocks must be manually assign to a carton.

Labels

You can print cartonization labels using Infor Document Management or Enterprise Printing Platform, a third party labeling software. Default label templates are provided. You can create custom label templates and then specify which template to use for each label on SA Printer Setup records.

See the Infor CloudSuite Distribution Configuration Guide or the Infor Distribution SX.e Integration Guide for Enterprise Printing Platform.

You can print labels from the Cartonization Center. You can print all labels, per type, that are required for an order. You can also print a single label for most types of labels. The label templates on SA Printer Setup are always used to determine the format of the label.

This table shows the types of labels that are available:

Label Type Description
Carton Carton ID label for each carton for an order
Product Product label for each product/quantity in each carton for an order
Shipping Address information label for the order
Package Carton detail label for each carton for an order

You can also print package labels from the Sales Entry Pick Tickets Report, Transfer Entry Print WT Report, or the Integrated Barcode (IBC) OE RF Shp Feedback function on an RF unit. The package label template for cartonization is are used if these criteria are met:

  • Cartonization is activated in SA Administrator Options.
  • A customer is on the sales order or warehouse transfer direct order.
  • The customer uses cartonization for sales orders, or the customer uses warehouse default settings.
  • If the customer uses warehouse default settings, then the warehouse must use cartonization for sales orders.

If the criteria are not met, then the labels are printed in the Integrate Barcode format that is specified on the printer record.

Reports

The cartonization information is included in these reports:

  • Customer Master Report
  • Data Conversion Reports
  • Product Warehouse Master Report
  • SA Data Archive Orders Report
  • SA Data Archive Transfers Report
  • SA Label Configuration Review Report
  • Sales Consolidated Invoice Report
  • Sales Entry Invoice Processing Report
  • Sales Entry Pick Ticket Report
  • Sales Entry Print Manifest Report
  • Sales Order Master List Report
  • Transfer Entry Print WT Report
  • Transfer Master List Report

Birst and Data Lake

These cartonization tables are available in Birst and Data Lake:

  • ICSCN: Product Cartonization Package Setup records
  • ICECNHDR: Cartonization Center header records
  • ICECNDTL: Cartonization Center detail records

Advance ship notices

Cartonization information is included in AdvanceShipNotice BODs, based on the Print Carton Information on Advanced Shipping Notice (ASN) option on warehouse records. Customers can receive ASNs through AdvanceShipNotice BODs when you run the Sales Entry Advance Shipping Notice (856) Report.

Note: If the carton ID is included in the BOD, then the freight and weight values in the AdvanceShipNoticeUnit section of the BOD are for the individual carton, not the containers.

For setup information, see the Infor CloudSuite Distribution Setup and Administration Guide for EDI.

Integrated applications

Cartonization is supported in integrations with these types of applications:

  • Third-party shipping applications that use the Distribution SX.e shipping interface

    Cartons can be automatically shipped and unshipped if the sales order is shipped or unshipped in a third-party shipping application. You can also ship warehouse transfers, but you cannot unship them.

    If you use third-party shipping application to determine values such as freight charges and carton weights, then a package record with a package number is created in Distribution SX.e. The package record is used to update the order, but it does not update the carton record. You can manually update the carton information in the Cartonization Center if required.

  • Applications that use sxapiOEOrderShipUnship call to ship orders

    Shipment of cartons must be validated before the order can be shipped.

  • Applications that can process the Sync.Shipment BOD

    The application that receives the BOD must be able to process the carton information.

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