The shipment process includes one single point of entry, handling, and delivering a shipment, including printing of all necessary shipment documents. The shipment process enables proactive shipment planning and re-planning. The process also enables you to create preliminary shipments, containing order lines in the Released, Reserved, or Partially Delivered status from various orders. Then, you can work with the connected order lines. The shipment process generally includes a number of activities and different stages. As a part of the shipment process activities, you can initiate a shipment, connect order lines to the shipment, pick and report, define a package structure, create transport labels and shipment documents, deliver and send dispatch advices.
The shipment process can be initiated in two different ways:
Initiating a shipment automatically is made possible when a customer order is released, provided that the relevant shipment information has been maintained in advance for the customer. When a shipment is automatically created, order lines are also automatically connected to the shipment.
When you initiate a shipment manually, you begin by creating a shipment header in which the customer, site, and delivery address is entered. Thereafter, you can connect customer order lines in the Released, Reserved, or Partially Delivered status to the shipment and proceed with the shipment flow.
A shipment process will include different stages such as Preliminary, Complete, and Closed. When a shipment is initiated, it assumes the Preliminary stage. At this stage, you can make changes to the shipment and also print the preliminary shipment documents. When a shipment is in the Preliminary stage, you can make a transition to the Complete stage. You should note however, that it is also possible to convert a shipment in the Complete stage back to a Preliminary stage, as long as the shipment has not been delivered. The final stage of a shipment is when it reaches the Closed stage. At this point, no further change to the content of the shipment is allowed and it is considered final. All shipment documents printed thereafter will also be considered as final. If a shipment is in the Preliminary or Complete stage, you can make a transition to Finalize Shipment. By doing so, the shipment will automatically perform all the necessary shipment activities until it reaches the Closed stage.
Once an order line is connected to a shipment, it will no longer be possible to handle the line in the traditional order flow. For example, picking must be reported in the Shipment window. Likewise, other shipment activities such as reserving, defining a package structure, delivering, and printing of shipment documents must all be performed in the same Shipment window.
After performing a reservation, you can create a consolidated pick list. However, this is not possible unless some quantity has been reserved. Once the pick list is created and picking is performed, you can proceed to report picking or to report picking with differences if needed. With this approach, it is possible to prepare a shipment at an early stage, and to prepare documents and booking proposals in advance.
If you print preliminary documents before a package structure has been defined for the shipment, these documents will not be complete. Defining a package structure is not a must for a shipment. However if there is a need, defining a structure can be done automatically or manually, and each package unit is cross-referenced against an order line connected to the shipment. The ability to define a package structure enables an accurate weight and volume calculation of each container. It also provides the ability to track and trace individual containers and their exact contents in terms of quantity, part number, customer order line, and lot/batch number. You can make modifications to the automatically created package structure by adding, deleting, or moving packages and handling units within the structure as desired.
You can print the following documents from a shipment. You must note that each of these documents can be printed at various stages in the shipment process, but they will not be final until the shipment is closed.
For delivery of a shipment, only the order lines that have been picked partially or completely can be registered as delivered. The difference compared to the existing order flow is that the delivery in the shipment process is based on the order lines connected to a shipment rather than a specific order. Note that it is also possible to send and resend a dispatch advice manually. You can also send a dispatch advice automatically instead. However, to do this, relevant information to send a dispatch advice automatically must have been maintained in advance for the customer.
Closure of the shipment can be automatic or manual. Use Finalize Shipment to enable the automatic closure of the shipment as a result of performing all the necessary shipment activities. The shipment being closed means that the goods have left the sender and no further changes to the content of the shipment is allowed. The only activities still allowed when a shipment is closed, is to send or resend the dispatch advice, print shipment documents and transport labels. Note that a closed shipment is possible to invoice. You can create one invoice for the complete shipment, if desired as a collective or normal invoice.