SAP TM (Transportation Management) planning profile

Planning profiles are created to check how system needs to do the planning and what we do in planning profile that system use to get the desired result for optimization.

Planning profile creation-

Go to Profiles and settings tile in Fiori-

Select all planning profiles-

Create new or copy existing and need to save n TR request-

After creating planning profile that need to assign transportation cockpit profiles and layout sets-

Planning profile attributes

Planning profile-

Define based on what we need to do in planning

Type Determination Rule- If we want the documents to determine on he basis of certain criteria then we can choose based on planning profile category or condition based. Condition based means like creating some conditions for example if freight unit type is ‘X’ then freight order is type is ‘Y’.

Default profile- If checked then system will consider default planning profile.

Check strategy- While doing planning system does certain checks like incompatibility settings, cost settings and mostly this is related to capacity settings.

Package Building-

Package building profile- TM will have package building capabilities as well and required when there is no handling unit managed by S4 side and EWM or in LSP scenario and during that we tell system that if material is parcel type then it needs o packed with specific dimension and will have packaging units and parameters then system will convert the packages into freight units.

And on the basis of this package building profile load planning can be done.

Planning Horizon-

Planning Horizon is the mentioned time period for planning in days depending upon domestic and international planning.

Parallel processing profiles-

System will carry some activities in parallel so processing time will be reduced like lane determination , input data selection , distance and duration determination , package building.

Profile assignments-

Planning profile is combination of multiple profiles like selection profile for freight orders , freight bookings, optimizer settings(based on route or cost effective),load planning settings (how he load is fitting into container) , constraints and cost settings, incompatibility settings, carrier selection, scheduling settings, capacity selection settings.

Capacity selection settings-

In this section we do the capacity settings and define available resources required for doing the planning in the form of list of modes of transport and means of transport and capacity planning taken care. Drivers can be added here as resources. Container resources for rail and ship scenario added.

Schedules required for Ship departure and arrival, Air schedules and rail schedules also listed here to manage them accordingly.

Optimizer settings-

Planning strategy- This is vehicle scheduling strategy and it also does carrier selection and allocation.

FO building rule- I states when new freight order needs to be created and at what resource stage like

when resource is empty or when the resource will come back to the distribution centre.

Transportation proposal settings-

Acceptable transportation proposal- Here we define whether to save route and freight documents or route only

Planning strategy for transportation proposal-

This is required in case of rail cart scenario where 1 engine which is assigned and moves whole train and others are passive units.

Transportation proposal preferences- How the transportation proposals needs to carry -

cost relevance, time relevant, route , carrier variation.

Optimizer runtime- Multiple processes can be allocated here and runtime entered here so system can run these processes parallel.

Incremental planning- It creates one optimized plan if we try to make more optimization then system will propose other optimizer plan but optimizer run will take more time so I is recommended when auto planning is there and route an other things are specific and small updates needs to done hen only his is maintained.

It takes lot of time to run optimizer planning so it is not recommended.

Rough planning and capacity constraints- It is related to capacity constraints and and considering them system will do rough planning. It also impacts the performance.

Transshipment locations- Those are the locations where means of transport gets changes like road to rail to ship or air then there is transshipment locations come into picture and here we maintain how many transshipment locations used apart from other defaults.

Constraints and cost settings-

Freight unit costs-Major scenario with respect to cost and constraints defined here like earliness delay costs, cost of non delivery , cost of earliness per day and lateness per day.

Cost of non delivery can be maintained highest cost figures so this price will show and system will force to propose deliveries.

Cost of earliness and lateness applicable to pick as well as destination location.

Means of transport settings details- Here we can add different means of transport resource wise and their costs.

Resource utilization and capacity constraints costs maintained here so this becomes very important section.

Distance settings- Here the cost maintained like route based distance cost or destination based cost.

Penalty cost- If timely pick up doesn’t happens or early pick up happens then this costs will be applicable like premature / delayed pick up, premature/delayed delivery. It is related to specific means of transport and driving resource utilization.

Quantity costs-In case of multiple loading kind of things then this will come into picture.

Fixed cost per vehicle resource- Comes when there is fixed cost defined for using a particular vehicle resource, this is minimum charges needs to pay. Resource breakdown/ back up cost can be added here.

Duration settings- This cost depend upon means of transport and defined accordingly here.

Stop settings- We can add the cost as per stops taken by a truck or ship. If we don’ expect any stop for the means of transport hen mention as zero.

Load planning-

Load planning strategy- Load planning strategy maintained here. We can take standard or customize one based on resources and means of transport.

Maximum runtime - Defined based on capacity.

Load planning rules- We can define certain rules for load planning for how the loading need to be done like multiple loads to be loaded at beginning or at the end.

Carrier selection settings-

Here we define how carrier selection needs to carried out based on cost effective or transportation lanes basis.

Planning strategy - Do the carrier acceptance

Action for manual ranking- Whether manual adding carrier in freight order is allowed not that is defined here.

Transportation charge interpretation- It will define how to show he carriers from transportation lane with respect to charges like do not accept carriers with 0 charge, accept with charges zero.

Action after carrier selection run- We define here to assign best carrier.

Continuous move type- It is applicable in case of vehicles doing continuous move from source to destination and again picking and doing deliveries while coming back and so the vehicle will not be empty at any point of time and will get better rate from carrier and settings maintained here.

Other settings-

Allocation usage , business share usage, strategy and carrier costs origin settings maintained here.

Allocation usage and business share usage are kind of quota arrangements so we allocate certain business on the transportation lane towards carrier and accordingly carrier selection takes place .

Suppose there are multiple carriers from location to location on a transportation lane so allocation can be done percentage wise for example 70% to one carrier and 30% to other for a year or a month.

Carrier cost origin- Defined cost origin here that is from transportation lane, transportation charges from TCM.

Incompatibility settings-

These settings required where two things can not be combined together like perishable and exclusive materials and not be transported together so need create incompatibility conditions and system will not do load planning together for those materials.

There are more situations like cold storage and normal truck vehicle resources should not be combined together, if we want a specific carrier not to assigned to a transportation lane, a driver not to be assigned to vehicle resource then also these incompatibility settings maintained.

Scheduling schedules- Variable parameters entered in case of outbound and inbound scheduling.