The use of items in Freight Management

When sales orders, purchase orders, planned distribution orders, or warehouse orders require transportation, freight orders are created from these orders. Freight orders are created automatically, per batch, or sometimes manually. During this process, the freight orders are provided with specific freight related information.

Among other things, the items on the freight orders are provided with data that refers to:

  • Physical characteristics
    This includes their shape, size, or weight.
  • Special properties
    For example, toxic materials, foodstuffs, or livestock. Special properties are defined by adding transportation master data such as combination codes, transport types, and transport means groups to items.
  • Rating features
    These include information such as speedy delivery, normal delivery, and so on.

This information is defined in the Items - Freight Management (fmfmd1100m000) session and in the Items - Freight Defaults (fmfmd1101m000) session of the Freight Master Data module.

Freight uses this information to determine the proper type of transportation for these items and to group the orders that list these items into shipments and loads.

To define freight related information for items, proceed as follows:

  1. Define default data for items in the Items - Freight Defaults (fmfmd1101m000) session. Defining item default data includes the following steps:
    1. Select an item type and an item group.
    2. Specify values for the available freight attributes related to the selected item type and an item group.
  2. Define freight related data for individual items in the Items - Freight Management (fmfmd1100m000) session. In this session, you define freight default data for individual items.

If you define freight defaults for a combination of item type and item group, these default values default for items with matching item types and item groups. Whenever this type of item is entered on a freight order, the default values appear on the freight order line where the item is listed.

Similarly, if a freight order is created that lists an item for which individual freight related data are defined, the freight related data appears on the freight order line that lists the item.

Note
  • You can maintain freight related data for combinations of business partners and items in the Items - Ship-from/to Business Partner (fmfmd2100m000) session.
  • You can overwrite freight default data for individual items in the Items - Freight Management (fmfmd1100m000) session. In the Freight Order Lines (fmfoc2101m000) session, you can overwrite freight defaults in freight order lines.