| | FreightYou can use Freight to plan or subcontract the transportation of inbound and
outbound goods, which helps you select the most cost-effective way to get goods
in and out of the site at the correct times. Functionality For this purpose, Freight offers the following
functionality: Freight order control A freight order is, essentially, a commission to transport a
particular number of goods. To plan the transportation of goods, and to
subcontract the transportation of goods with or without transport planning, Freight must know
which goods to transport. This information is provided by freight orders.
Therefore, subcontracting and transport planning are based on freight orders. Freight creates
freight orders from originating orders or users create freight orders manually
in Freight. An
originating order is an order from which a freight order is created, such as a
purchase order or a sales order. Transport planning In Freight, transport planning is called load building. Load building
is the process of creating load plans for a group of freight orders. A load
plan is, essentially, a transport plan. A load plan provides you with
information such as: - Details about the goods to be transported
- Loading and unloading addresses, dates, and
times
- The carrier that is to carry out transportation
- Transport costs
Subcontracting Subcontracting is the process of offering freight orders to an
external carrier for transportation. You can create load plans for the freight
orders and offer the planned loads to a carrier, or you can offer groups of
freight orders called clusters for which no load building is performed. Freight
order clustering is one of the main processes within the subcontracting
functionality. Carrier selection While performing transport planning and/or freight order
clustering, LN also looks
for the most cost-effective and efficient carrier services. Carriers are
selected by means of various criteria, such as prices, terms of delivery, the
available types of transport of the carriers (can the carrier provide the
appropriate type of transportation to transport the goods listed on the freight
orders?), routes, and so on. Transport costing During transport planning and/or freight order subcontracting,
the freight costs are also calculated. Freight costs are the costs of
transportation of particular consignments of goods that an organization must
pay to the carrier that actually carries out the transportation. Freight cost
calculation is based on factors such as the quantities of the goods, the rates
of the selected carriers, the type of transportation required, and so
on. Transport rating Freight rates are maintained in freight rate books in Common. To determine
the transportation costs of, for example, a freight order line, Freight retrieves
the freight rate from freight rate books defined
in the Pricing module of Common. To
find the correct freight rate book, LN uses freight rate matrices. A freight rate
matrix is a group of attributes and values that serve as selection criteria for
a rate book. If the matrix attributes match the properties of a freight order
line, the rate book associated with the freight matrix is used to calculate the
transport costs for the freight order line. Invoicing Most organizations have agreements with their customers and
suppliers on how much they can charge for transportation: the full amount they
had to pay to the carrier that carried out the transportation, some special
rate, or no charge at all. In Freight, the amount for freight costs invoiced to
the business partner is determined by the invoicing method defined for the
business partner. For further information, see Invoicing methods.
Positioning of Freight Management Freight is primarily intended for various types of companies that
subcontract transportation to selected carriers, but Freight also
supports companies that run their own fleet. Although this package does not
focus on fleet management matters, such as fuel control, or the maintenance and
costs of self-owned fleets, you can define such fleets and plan transportation
for individual means of transport. Freight also supports centralized planning
and subcontracting for organizations that work in a multi-site
environment. Business environment Typically, Freight is used by an organization's traffic or logistics
department, which is the department that deals with transportation for inbound
and outbound goods. Shipping office In Freight, the traffic or logistics department is referred to as
shipping office. The shipping office's activities include transportation
planning and hiring carriers for inbound and/or outbound transportation. Some companies do not hire external carriers, but instead
leave all their transportation to their own forwarding service. Companies that
hire external carriers may or may not plan the transportation for these
carriers. Planning groups In the shipping office, individual planners are, usually,
responsible for transportation of specific types of goods or areas that require
specific handling. In large organizations, the shipping office is often
subdivided into several groups. These groups, rather than individual planners,
deal with particular types of goods or areas that require specific handling.
For example, one group can deal with overseas transport and another with
domestic transport by road. In Freight, these groups are referred to as
planning groups. Multiple shipping offices Very large organizations can have more than one shipping
office. In these cases, each shipping office is usually responsible for the
transportation of goods for particular groups of warehouses. Multi-site environment Various organizations, and not only the larger ones, work in a
multi-site environment. This means, that transport is carried out or initiated
in various sites. Such organizations require centralized planning and/or
subcontracting for at least part of their transportation, which implies that
the shipping office of one site performs planning and/or subcontracting on
behalf of one or more other sites within the organization. | |