Personal Insights
Carrier updates and Event reporting from Logistics business network (LBN) to freight order in Transportation management ( TM ) of S/4HANA
Logistics Business Network (LBN) as described in my earlier blogpost https://blogs.sap.com/2021/08/27/freight-collaboration-with-sap-logistics-business-network-lbn-and-its-integration-with-sap-transportation-management-tm/ is becoming popular with customers because of its rich functionalities with Track & trace , Event reporting etc. Recently, I did a Proof of Concept (PoC) with Carrier updates and Event reporting from LBN to Freight order in Transportation Management ( TM ) of S/4HANA for an Electronic goods manufacturing company and thought to share my learning & experience in this blogpost.
The high level requirement has been described in below Image. Freight order is sent to the carrier for Confirmation by carrier (1) . Carrier should then check the details of the transport in the freight order and update the information with Truck (vehicle) number & the name of the Driver and those information are to be updated to the freight order (2). Freight order then subsequently becomes ready for reporting in LBN by the carrier. Standard events like Delay, Exception, Proof of pick up (or delivery) etc can be reported by the carrier through LBN Portal. The customer wanted that if there is any delay in either Pick up or delivery by the carrier for t5hat freight order , then that should be reported to the freight order (3) and an email should be triggered to the concerned person (4) stating the reason for the delay.
The above flow has been illustrated with relevant screenshots from TM on S/4HANA and LBN in below images.
(1) A XML message is triggered in freight order in TM on S/4HANA to LBN on ‘Sent to Carrier’ from the freight order and the same freight order appears in LBN for ‘Confirm’ or ‘Reject’ by the carrier as in below image.
(2) Carrier confirms the freight order with App ‘Freight orders for Confirmation’ and updates with License plate & the name of the driver and these information are updated in freight order in TM on S/4HANA as in below image.
(3) Once the freight order is confirmed, then the freight order appears in App ‘Freight orders for reporting’ in LBN. In case of any delay in pick up , Carrier updates the freight order with LBN app ‘Freight orders for reporting’ that there will be ‘Delay’ in Pick up of the transport due to ‘Heavy snow fall’ and the same is updated in freight order as in below image.
(4) An email is triggered to the concerned person/s with the reason for the delay as displayed in SOST and as shown in below image.
Many customers will be looking for this functionality for the required collaboration with carrier and Transportation manager .This is just one of the several scenarios that can be modelled with LBN with TM . It appears from the demands from several customers that LBN is becoming one of the proven applications for collaboration, event reporting with carriers etc for complex logistic execution scenarios.
This blogpost is based on my tests , observations and insights with LBN and TM in S/4HANA. Will appreciate your feedback and comments.
in case of Air/ ocean , can we leverage LBN or we still need Project44 as add on with extra cost ?
LBN with freight booking (Ocean) is in SAP's road map.
Hi Mrinal , this will be quite useful for customers ,did you use the standard EM Alert management here to trigger the alert upon triggering the Delay event, are you using EM for S/4 HANA ?
Used PPF , not EM as the client is implementing LBN (and does not want to invest aloso on EM).
Knowledge rich , Blog. Thanks much Mrinal.
Mrinal- can you please let me know where i can see driver detail in FO when feed from LBN . i checked under Subcontracting RFQ but didn't find.
Secondly -is there any set up need to email functionality to be active for Event reporting like you did for delay event.
Regards,
Guatam S
hi Mrinal, really a great and simple overview of the essentials of LBN.
Guatam,
Driver detail is updated into the general data tab of the freight order as follows:
general data tab fo