Weight group not used in Sales order for route determination!

[Former Member]

Hi all,

can someone explain me why SAP is not taking the weight group into account when determining the route in the sales order?

It is only doing this in the delivery. 

From a functional point of view, this is wrong. 

Assume the following:

- if my truck is fully load, my forward carrier needs 1 day to transport it to the end customer (lead time is 1 day)

- if my truck is not fully load, my forward carrier needs an extra day to fill it up with other goods from another vendor (lead time is 2 days)

So based on the weight, the lead time changes. 

cheers, Jurgen

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi jurgen,

In Delivery we are doing packing.....after packing the weight will change

Depends on the weight the mode of transport will change.....based on this the route will change

Regards

chandra

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Chandra,

yes you are correct, but in the sales order I determine the lead time.  So I would expect to have the weight group as well in the sales order to determine the correct route and hence the lead time.  At delivery, the weight can deviate from the requested weight in the sales order and the route must be redetermined.

regards, Jurgen

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Good day,

Weight group check is in the delivery as per design, it is logical and correct. Weight groups are also redetermined and route changes can happen if delivery quantities change provided you have route re-determination allowed. The delivery weight may vary greatly when you include packaging materials like cartons and higher level packing handling units like wooden pallets. For most businesses the final pallet count cannot be known at time of sales order creation even if the volume was also calculated in the sales order how could the system possibly calculate how many cartons will actually fit on each pallet?

Should we also pack on the sales order level so we know how many pallets there will be?

Should we create transfer order against the sales order rather then delivery so we can be sure the actual delivered quantity will not vary from ordered quantity?

The reason SAP does not use weight groups for route determination is that the sales order is an order management object/sales document - the subsequent outbound delivery is the warehouse and distribution object. It is the delivery that is used for final transportation planning and final shipment planning because the delivery is the warehouse process and distribution relevant document.

I would suggest that you find a carrier that can handle your LTL (Less Then Load) deliveries with the same transit time as the carrier handling the full truck loads, build an extra day pick/pack lead time or add a day to the route transit time to allow for the short comings of the available carriers in your region.

Kind regards,

Jacob

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Jacob,

thanks for your reply. You are absolutely right with regards to sales order vs. delivery.  The problem I have is due to the fact that my forward carriers require a different lead time depending on an LTL or FTL (big bags on pallet).  A work around is to manually change the shipping condition if I know the customer is ordering less than 15 ton and based on this determine a different route with a different transportation lead time.

kind regards, Jurgen