To define and use areas in Freight

In Freight, an area is made up of a number of addresses that share the same Area entity. Areas are defined in the Areas (tcmcs0145m000) session.

You can use areas for the following purposes:

To define the addresses included in a standard route.
To serve as a planning group criterion for freight order lines.

To define an area

To define an area, you must access the Addresses - Freight Management (fmfmd0110m000) session and to each address that you want to include in the area, you add an area code from the Areas (tcmcs0145m000) session.

Example

To define a sales district in central London, define an Area titled LSW in the Areas (tcmcs0145m000) session.

In the Addresses - Freight Management (fmfmd0110m000) session, select the customer addresses that are located in the sales district, for example:

86, Brompton Road, London SW3 1ER
220, Fulham Rd, Chelsea, London SW10 9NB
201 New Kings Road, London SW6 4SR

To each of these addresses, add the Area LSW.

To use areas to define standard route addresses

You can use areas or ZIP code ranges to define the addresses of a standard route. If you use areas to define the addresses of a standard route, the standard route usually consists of multiple areas.

An area of a standard route includes a number of addresses, such as delivery addresses, as in the previous example.

Freight planning and freight cost calculation is not carried out for the addresses within an area that is included in a standard route. The idea is, that the distances between the addresses within the area are so short, that freight planning and freight cost calculation is irrelevant. Freight planning and freight cost calculation is performed for the distances between the Reference Address of the areas of a standard route.

Example of using areas in a standard route

The standard route in this example is travelled by a truck delivering stereo equipment to retailers once every three weeks. Transport costs are charged for the distances between the warehouse and the reference addresses. There is no charge for distances travelled inside the areas.

For example, a delivery to delivery address 7 in Area 2 is charged for the distance between the warehouse and the reference address of Area 1, added with the distance between the reference address of Area 1 and the reference address of Area 2. The same amount would be charged for a delivery to delivery address 5 in Area 2. Deliveries to the delivery addresses in Area 1 would be charged for the distance between the warehouse and the reference address of Area 1. Deliveries to the delivery addresses of Area 3 would be charged for the distances between the warehouse and the reference address of Area 1, added with the distance between the reference address of Area 1 and the reference address of Area 2, and the distance between the reference address of Area 2 and the reference address of Area 3.

How to define areas in standard routes

To use Area to define standard route addresses, proceed as follows:

Define an area in the Addresses - Freight Management (fmfmd0110m000) session by adding an Area to the addresses that are covered by the standard route.
In the Areas by Standard Route (fmlbd0152m000) session, add the area to the standard route.
Select the Reference Address for the area.
Repeat these steps for any following area that you want to define for the standard route.

In the Areas by Standard Route (fmlbd0152m000) session, you can specify the order in which the areas are visited.

To use areas as planning group criteria for freight order lines

To use an area as a selection criterion for a planning group, you must use the area as an attribute in the plan matrix of the planning group and add the area to each loading or unloading address that you want to allocate to the planning group. If the area of a loading or unloading address of a freight order line matches the area of the planning group, the freight order line is allocated to the planning group.

Example

Shipping office New York 1 handles transport planning for all goods issued and received by Warehouse New York 1. For transport planning to run smoothly, freight orders are automatically created from sales orders, and if a sales order lists goods issued by Warehouse New York 1, the freight order generated from the sales order is automatically allocated to Shipping office New York 1. To handle transport planning to Europe, Shipping office New York 1 operates two planning groups: Planning Group EU deals with EU countries, and Planning Group Non-EU deals with non-EU countries.

When a sales order is created for a customer in Europe for goods that are stored in Warehouse New York 1, a freight order is generated and automatically allocated to Shipping office New York 1. If the customer is located in a EU country, transportation is handled by Planning Group EU, and if the customer is located outside the EU, planning is handled by Planning Group Non-EU.

Note: As is described previously, freight cost calculation and transport planning are not carried out for the addresses inside an area. For very large regions with long distances between the loading and unloading addresses, such as those described in the previous example, it is unlikely that there is no charge for transport costs. Neither is it likely that you can do without transport planning. In these cases, you can use areas to define planning group criteria, but to define standard routes, use zip code ranges. In this way, you can set up a rate structure for large regions. ZIP code ranges are defined in the ZIP Codes by Standard Route (fmlbd0151m000) session.

To combine the two uses of areas

You can also combine the two uses of areas. In that case, freight order lines that travel addresses defined in the area of a standard route are allocated to the planning group linked to the same area. For example, Planning Group CLD (Central London) deals with transportation to retailers located in the central London area. These retailers are visited once every two weeks along a fixed route.

Note: If transport costs are charged and if transport planning is required for transport between the addresses of the region, you cannot use an area both for planning group allocation and standard route definition.