SAP S/4HANA Transportation Management 2020 Development Overview – FPS1

Another year, another milestone for SAP S/4HANA Transportation Management! This week, the new feature pack FPS 1 for SAP S/4HANA 2020 has been released. Since release 1709, we have continuously developed f business and technical innovations in order to support our customers’ journey to the Intelligent Enterprise. In this blog, I would like to present some highlights of SAP S/4HANA TM FPS1.

A key theme and continuous focus is to foster integration of the various S/4HANA applications. With the Advanced Shipping and Receiving processes we have achieved an important milestone on this journey.

Advanced Shipping and Receiving

Advanced Shipping and Receiving (Adv. SR) is a new, streamlined and integrated end-to-end process that allows users to send, receive and transport products. It simplifies communication between Transportation Management (TM), Extended Warehouse Management (EWM), Stock Room Management (STRM), Inventory Management, Physical Inventory (MM-IM) and Logistics Execution (LE) application components embedded in SAP S/4HANA.

Figure 1. Advanced Shipping and Receiving Process

A key element of Adv. SR  is a simplified SAP TM and SAP EWM integration supporting mixed and multi-warehouse scenarios within one freight order, which leads to faster processing and increased consistency. With seamless integration between three parties on S/4HANA (supplier, carrier and customer) Adv. SR will increase freight visibility and business productivity. New features and improved processes (such as multi-pick/multi-drop scenario, cross warehouse loading and unloading, harmonization of inbound and outbound scenarios) result in higher asset utilization, lower CO2 emissions, freight spend savings, and faster processing time.

Check out this video to learn more about this new functionality.

Also, we have made a lot of enhancements in other key areas, such as Freight Order Management, Planning and Optimization and Charge and Freight Settlement Management.

Enhancement of Freight Order Management

Most of these enhancements are also available in the Advanced Shipping and Receiving process, of which Freight Order Management is an integral part:

• The usage of auxiliary packaging materials is now available in the TM business documents, such as freight orders or consignments. Furthermore, these are considered by the package building function and during integration with SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM), e.g. as part of the Advanced Shipping and Receiving Process.
• With the new release it is possible to set the handling execution status values Checked Out and Not Checked Out at a stop level for business documents such as freight orders, freight bookings and consignment orders. You set the Checked Out status after the goods have been unloaded from or loaded onto the truck and the documents of the truck have been checked. The truck itself is also getting checked to make sure that, e.g. the doors are closed. If execution is tracked with SAP Event Management, the Checkout event is sent automatically to all assigned freight units and the business document. You can revert the Checked Out status in case you selected it by mistake. The system then sets the handling execution status back to Unloaded or Loaded.

Enhancement of Planning and Optimization

Transportation Planning and Optimization streamlines logistics operations, increases business productivity and results in less freight spend and faster processing time. A great number of new features and enhancements were developed in this area. This was not only done to round up the planning functionality, increase accuracy in package building and load optimization, but also to support the new Advanced Shipping and Receiving process. The following new functions are now available:

• Warehouse loading stops are now displayed for road freight orders, consignment orders, freight units and transportation units. These are represented by a warehouse number, a loading point and a warehouse door.
• Now it is possible to create a PDF file for your Load Plan including a 3D image. Users can trigger the creation of a PDF file in the single document user interface (road freight order) via the output management tab. The PDF file contains tabular information, as well as (multiple) 3d images.

Figure 2. Example for PDF file

• To increase the utilization of the floor space a new load planning rule is introduced. The rule 2161 minimizes the number of stacks in the cargo space.

Figure 3. New load planning rule to minimize the number of stacks in the cargo space

• The new explanation tool for scheduling results enables users to analyze scheduling results to better understand how the system has scheduled the objects.
• It is now possible to plan a new business objects consignment manually in the Transportation Cockpit.
• A lot of usability enhancements were made in the transportation cockpit and planning area. To find out all the details, please check this What’s New document.

Collaboration in Freight Settlement Dispute Management

Now, it is possible to send out dispute case information, to your partner in Transportation Management either by email or printout, or by using an enterprise service. You can also receive the dispute case information sent by your partner using an enterprise service. This enables you to share the details of a freight cost dispute associated with a carrier invoice or a freight document in a self-billing process.

Collaboration Application: Manage Freight Agreement RFQs

This new feature of the collaboration app improves the negotiation and collaboration process between the shipper and the carrier. As a shipper you can request quotations for transportation services and negotiate rates with carriers, even if they don’t use Transportation Management (TM) in SAP S/4HANA. Your carriers can access the Manage Freight Agreement RFQs app to monitor and respond to the requests for quotation (RFQs). Your carriers can also use Microsoft Excel to respond to your RFQs with their rates.

If you are interested in reviewing  more detailed information on the latest release, please check the following resources:

• Release Notes
• SAP TM Product Page on sap.com
• SAP Community for Transportation Management
• SAP Transportation Management Group on LinkedIn