Combining intercompany Deliveries and Purchase Orders into single/multiple shipments

[Former Member]

Hi Experts!!

My client has a requirements to combine deliveries and purchase orders into single/multiple shipment and goods receipt in receiving plant accordingly.

We have a store (plant) who can order from another plant (distribution Center) and Vendor. These orders are delivered to ordering plant via terminal (another distribution center/Plant) i.e. products are re-shuffled and shipped in different HU.

1. Plant A (store) raises inter company order on plant B (distribution Center).

2. Pant A raises purchase order on Vendor.

3. Plant B and Vendor delivers products in plant C (Terminal).

4. Plant C re-shuffles products and prepares two different handling unit packages and ships to plant A.

5. Plant A is supposed to book goods receipt as per consignment sent by plant C against original orders.

Can you please let me know how can I achieve this in SAP?

[VeselinaPeykova]

In standard ERP you plan deliveries onto shipments - are you using an optimizer such as Ortec TLO that supports transportation planning with purchase orders? If yes, then probably SAP SD forum is not the most suitable place to ask for assistance on transportation planning topics.

In case you actually meant deliveries: please put an effort to formulate point 1-5 using the precise SAP terminology - such as sales order, purchase order, outbound delivery, inbound delivery, shipment, special stock, invoice, legal implications.

After you manage to re-phrase the user's requirement, you will at least have a starting point to perform searches in the forum and even figure out the best design on your own.

In addition - you increase the chances to receive higher quality of responses if you explain in your post what you have tried so far and with which specific part of the requirement you need assistance.

[Former Member]

Hi Veselina,

Thanks for your reply!!

Please find precise requirement in SAP Terminology below.

1. Plant A (store) raises inter company stock transport order on plant B (distribution Center).

2. Pant A raises purchase order on External Vendor with delivery address of Terminal (plant C).

3. Plant C activities are not tracked in SAP like GRN/PGI. It's place used to re-pack such     

   deliveries.

3. Outbound delivery is created for stock transport order and goods issue posted in plant B.

4. Vendor may send ASN or may not send ASN against purchase order.

5. Outbound Delivery PGI by plant B and Vendor order is delivered in Plant C.

6. There is possibility that multiple outbound deliveries (from different stores like plant A) are packed in

    single handling unit by plant B.

7. Plant C breaks handling unit and re-shuffles goods and new handling unit is build for plant A which

    includes Vendor delivered products and products from outbound delivery.

8. There are scenarios where, products can be packed in two different handling units for plant A and

    shipped separately.

9. Plant A supposed to book GRN based on handling units received from terminal.

I hope this explains business scenario. I tried to use consolidated shipment functionality of SAP but did not succeed. It seems I can not combine partial outbound deliveries with partial inbound deliveries/PO and build new handling unit.

Let me know if you need any further details on the same.

[VeselinaPeykova]

Hello Kiran,

now the requirement is much easier to understand .

I am not 100% sure (I am yet to start a discussion in SCN), but probably you can still add tags to your opening post, so that people can easily find the thread and respond only to one of the identical discussions (SCM LE and SD Sales).

What if you look at the problem from a slightly different angle - the role of plant C as a transportation cross-docking location?

From logistics point of view the warehouse receives packaged products (inbound from intercompany and another inbound from the external vendor). Then the personnel inspects, unpacks, repackages the products and places them on another truck for outbound processing. These products are received in plant A as inbound packaged goods. This would mean that you will need to consolidate onto shipments from plant C only outbound deliveries, which in turn can generate the respective inbound to plant A.

I borrow the idea from the standard transportation cross-docking concept, even though it does not fully fit into your scenario (you need some workaround for the goods movement postings, which you mention are undesirable despite that this is what happens in reality).

[Former Member]

Hi Veselina,

Yes, its cross docking requirement but not as per SAP. In SAP cross-docking, both orders (STO and PO) are supposed to be raised via plant C so that when plant C receives goods, those will be cross-docked by using goods receipt and gods issue. In that case, there would be 4 orders in total. Two STOs on plant C by Plant A. One consolidated STO from plant C to plant B and one consolidated PO from Plant C to Vendor. We have this process which is meant for flow through.

For this particular cross dock process, the idea is not to raise orders on plant C.

Is there any functionality wherein a HU can be build in plant C and can be goods receipted in store which will be linked to original orders.

Thanks for your reply!!

[VeselinaPeykova]

I agree that it is not classical cross-docking.

But you do not need to have additional orders, only inbound/outbound deliveries.

I have seen something like that at a customer (with additional development) - they needed to map transportation from distribution center to cross-docking location and from the cross-dock to the end customer. It was 1 order with 1 outbound to x-dock, 1 inbound in x-dock, then another outbound to customer. From the standard documentation in the help site I see that they also show in the diagram only one STO with several outbound and inbound deliveries.

They did not use the SAP standard packing solution, because it is too basic to fulfill the company requirements, but it seems to be possible to repack at the cross-dock location - after all this is a very common business process in some industries (my understanding is that you also wish to repack in plant C).

[Former Member]

Hi Veselina,

Yes, I am looking for creation of new handling unit in plant C by breaking handling unit build in Plant B and delivery sent by Vendor. It is also possible that STO raised by plant A on Plant C is included in same handling unit while goods issue.

What I understand from your explanation above is there is no such standard SAP functionality available for the same. I was hoping if consolidated shipment can be used for such scenarios? (I have never worked on consolidated shipment so not aware of its functionality.)

Can you please confirm my above understanding.

If I understand correct, then there seems to be only one way to customize the requirement by providing some interface to warehouse team and generate handling unit based on packing of goods in plant C. Once this handling unit is build in plant C and delivered in Plant A, plant A will scan this handling unit and in background, system should identify what products are packed in this custom handling unit and book GRN against main outbound/inbound deliveries.

But the problem in this solution is if I pack delivery (of STO raised by plant A on Plant C) in same handling unit. The issue would be this is custom handling unit built without reference of any order.

Does it sounds good as I cant see any standard solution?

Thanks in advance!!

[raviraj_sharma]

Hi Kiran,

From what I understand of the above  Discussion is that   You don't want to  map any  Inventory related tasks in Plant C  in the above process,  still somehow need to  track the HU  which is created in Plant C for receipt in Plant A. The HU of Plant C  could  have Materials  from Plant B and the vendor in a Single HU or could be Multiple HUs .  The GR must be done against the received HU as reference  and  Not the individual  POs(is this  Understanding correct?)

I have not worked  much with HUs  so don't know much about  how system behaves , but based on above it seems  you cannot work with standard cross doc or any other Standard option, can only suggest the Z development  :

There will need to be a Z table  of following structure:

1.Plant C HU Number, (PO+ Item+Qty)1   (PO+Item +Qty)2 ...n .

For goods receipt , user will scan the Incoming HU  from Plant C  , and from the table you will get which POs (Vendor_ Intercompany)  are relevant for this  and you can build a functionnmodule to post the MIGO accordingly.

If you work with inbound deliveries, you can include those in the  Structure instead of PO numbers.

[VeselinaPeykova]

1. I buy 10 packs of sugar (A1, A2, ...A10) to make rakia.

2. I go to a second store and buy 5 more packs (B1, B2,... B5)

2. I stop at another store, buy a box and pour the sugar in it.

3. I get home and open the box - there will be no packs, just sugar (what was I thinking when I tore the packages).

I can take 15 paper bags (C1, C2....C10) and pour the sugar from the box into them, but they will not be the same 15 packs of sugar that I bought. I can only tell that the sugar from C1 originates from any combination of A1... A10 and B1...B5.

This is the most traceability that you can get with repacking for the same material from two different sources and it is possible only if you force the picker to specify the correct unit from which he takes products to build the new pallet- I do not know if this can be acceptable by the business, because in case of any quality issue you will not know to whom to raise the complaint (which defeats one of the most common reasons to use the functionality).

In case the materials from the two sources are different then the most traceability is per quantity delivered between plant C and plant A. As we will know that the delivery between C and A is preceded by an inbound/and outbound from B to C, we can also get the list of SSCCs sent by plant C.

***

If by consolidated shipment you meant collective shipment (please correct me if I am wrong), they are still classified as either outbound or inbound, so you cannot plan both inbound and outbound deliveries together (at least not in standard).