1) Business Partner-
Business partner represents a person, organization, group of persons, group of organizations in which a company has business interest.
Business partners are created centrally with general data once and different roles can be assigned to business partner roles. General data is same for all the roles and specific business data created and assigned with respect to roles to avoid the redundancy of data.
BP Roles-
Carrier-This BP role identify the BP as carrier. There are some more categories available other than Carrier for assigning carrier role like subsidiary, carrier, agent, non-vessel operating common carrier.
Ship to party and sold to party-This identifies BP as customer.
Vendor- This identifies BP as supplier.
Organizational unit-Business partners to which this role is assigned represents organizational unit of the company.
Employee- This role assigned to BP and later assigned to organizational unit.
Internal user and contact person- This BP role assigned for BP’s who takes part in tendering processes.
Driver-This BP role assigned to BP as human resource for freight orders.
In SAP TM special tabs are available depending on the business partner role-
Identification-To differentiate different BP roles we can enter data in this tab like identification numbers, regulated agent codes.
Vendor Data- Supplier data can be stores in this tab like security status, date when the relationship started with this vendor etc. We can set blocks to define one-time accounts.
Vendor company organization data- Different configuration settings related to vendor company maintained in this tab like terms of payment, posting block.
Vendor organization data- Configuration settings related to purchasing organization maintained in this tab like purchasing groups, profiles, terms of payment and blocks.
Vendor partner determination- Here different roles related to purchasing organization maintained.
Customer data- Ship to party and sold to party related information stored here. Different configuration settings like onetime account, central block maintained here.
Customer company organization data- Different configuration settings related to company organization-maintained payment terms, posting block.
Customer org. data- Sales organization settings configured here.
Customer partner determination- Sales organization related business partners maintained here.
Additional text- This tab is used for maintaining additional texts like addresses, signatures and any other instructions.
2) Carrier Profiles-
It is used to define profile of carriers. Carriers are Business partners with role assigned as Carriers and one profile created for one carrier and identifies transportation capabilities of carries by maintaining characteristics in the carrier profile.
Different attributes related to the carrier can be maintained in different tab pages-
Transportation lane
Freight cost set
Product freight group
Transportation group
Equipment
Fixed transportation cost
Dimension cost
3) Product-
In SAP TM transportable goods (materials) are defined as products and product master data can be created and edited the data which is transferred from SAP ERP.
Different tab pages are available in this master data to maintain the information of material.
Properties- Transportation group maintained in this tab.
Properties two- Alternative product numbers maintained.
Unit of measure / Conversion rules
Packaging data
Storage data
3) Transportation Network-
Transportation Network or Transportation network cockpit function used for defining below master data objects in SAP TM to support TM planning and execution.
Location
Transportation Zone
Transportation Lane
Schedules
a) Location-
Location is a logical or physical place that forms the basis for carrying out the transportation processes. In transportation processes, there are source locations destination locations or transshipment locations nomenclature required to complete the process.
Locations are geo coded , can be assigned to transportation zones, can act as transshipment locations , can be specific to transactional data having one time address and can be nodes of transportation network.
Locations are identified by name and in SAP TM available standard locations are below-
b) Transportation Zone-
Transportation zone created by grouping different locations into one. This function reduces master data volume stored in the system.
Types of transportation zone-
Direct Zone- Locations assigned directly to zone
Postal Code Zone-Specified by postal code or postal code range
Region- Specified by country or region
Mixed Zone- A combination of three other zones.
Transportation Zones Hierarchy- Hierarchy can be defined for transportation zone by assigning one transportation zone to another. So all locations included in one zone also becomes part of other assigned zone and inherit properties from that zone.
One transportation zone cannot be assigned to itself.
One transportation zone can not be assigned to another zone if that zone already assigned to first transportation zone.
c)Transportation Lane-
Transportation lane represents a direct route between two locations to transport goods from one location to another.
Transportation lanes required to plan the transports from one location to another with certain means of transports and with certain carrier.
So, in short transportation zones displays direct reachability/direct route of the locations or transportation zones for a specific means of transport.
Transportation lanes used for planning distribution, procurement, carrier selection from different locations or transportation zones.
Below information need to assign to transportation lanes-
Source/origin and destination location
Means of transport
Validity
Distance
Cost
Carrier selection (On the basis of priority, cost and continuous movement)
d) Schedule-
This function in SAP TM master data represents the sequence of stops like gateways, airports, ports that is valid for a specific period. Schedules can be created to define fixed times of departure and arrival for certain means of transport
Movement of goods to the destination point will include the time of transportation between the stops and time of stay at each stop.
In SAP TM this new schedule concept we can use and plan different carrier and gateway schedules to get the information on sequence of stops, departure and stay time.
SAP TM make use of these schedules for means of transport to follow them a strict
transportation schedule.
There are three types of schedules-
1) Gateway schedules-
This type of schedule is available in air and sea mode only. Gateway schedules are used when the starting point and destination point of are gateways i.e. transportation hubs like container freight stations.
2) Gateway schedules with reference-
In case of see and air transportation mode we can reference one or more carrier schedules from gateway schedule. In case of air transport, it is used for mapping connecting flights in the schedule.
3) Carrier schedules-
Carrier schedules are used when the starting point and destination point of the transport are not gateways. The system calculates arrival and departure date and time at each stop in the sequence by considering transit time, cut off time and availability of goods.
4) Transportation resources-
Transportation resources play very important role in planning and execution in SAP TM.
Transportation resources consider availability , suitability, working time, available capacities and other restrictions into account while planning and execution.
Types of resources-
Calendar resource- Calendar resources are related to working time and related to shifts. They are used for calculation of operating times at the locations i.e. goods receipt and goods issue time. They are assigned to locations.
Vehicle resource- Represent a specific vehicle like truck with 20 pallets and used to check capacity and availability of vehicles.
Handling resource- Used for handling of goods and assigned to means of transport. They specify the capacity and hours they can be operated. Example- Forklift
Drivers- A driver is a person who operate the vehicle and we can assign default driver for the truck. After creation of freight order system automatically assigns default driver
Transportation unit resource- In SAP TM master data for mapping the capacity and availability while transporting transportation units are used. Example- container
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