TM Parcel Shipment

[Former Member]

Hello Experts,

I am working in TM9.3 for my client requirement in TM parcel shipment scenario I need to setup transportation lane (zone to zone) transit time and freight rate based on carrier/freight forwarder. In other words UPS, DHL and FedEx all use different transit_time & rates for zone to zone  t.lane. Is there any out-of-box solution available for this kind of setup? If not, please help me through customization solution.

I appreciate your help on this.

Thanks,

Venu

[former_member203115]

Offhand I would suggest

- only one generic lane, maybe by country such as US-Parcel > US-Parcel (this is zone to zone)

- use DSO and star shaped configuration (sorry, forget the exact terminology - don't have a system in front of me)

- put all of your rating and scheduling in the FA.  Can invoke lot of functionality for rating and scheduling based on service level

- consider integrating with the Parcel provider engine instead (i.e. FedEx) for rating - might be easier in the long run

- waybill functionality is fine for assigning tracking #s

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few steps.  All this is standard TM Parcel scenario, available as of 9.0 or 9.1.  Check the documentation.

What you will have to do as enhancements:

- integration with parcel provider engine

- parcel label generation, especially if any DG involved

- parcel manifest generation (what you send to the Parcel provider at the end of each day)

Big business decision:  how your client chooses service level - default to Ground or allow, say, customer service to choose (powerful but maybe dangerous as they will all pick Next Day Air )

Hope this helps

Mac McLarin

[Former Member]

Hi William,

Thanks for the reply, we are also looking for mode change for a parcel freight unit due to sometimes LTL shipment becomes cheaper than Parcel that's why we don't want to integrate with provide engine. I have strong feeling that I can model rate table structures through rate table determination precondition with carrier. I have problem only with modelling transit time by carrier for single transportation lane (Point A to Point B).

For example Point A to Point B service provider are FedEx(5 Hrs), DHL(4 Hrs), UPS(6 Hrs) etc...

Can you please help me how to configure this kind of transit time modelling by carrier out_of_box solution?

Thanks

Venu

[former_member203115]

From what I remember it's all in the freight agreement - for example you can use preconditions based on origin / destination zones, then put the appropriate transit times based on service level (ground, 2nd day air, etc) on a condition attached to that freight agreement item.  You will have to experiment with what works best.  This data (and condition) could be carrier-specific.

In my experience integrating with different service providers (FedEx for Parcel, Conway for LTL, etc.) could be valuable just because there is so much transit data out there to maintain - especially if you are dealing with a lot of lanes.   Same issue with pricing - all doable with TCM but there is a maintenance issue.  There are also 3rd party approaches such as XPS that can act as a go-between with your system and the carrier pricing data.

The DSO technique with all this freight agreement data will help you pick not only the cheapest options but the correct service levels based on the pickup / delivery dates.  In other words - if you have to deliver the item in 2 days and the Ground service level transit time with parcel carrier A is 3 days then DSO will ignore that option and pick the cheapest option with feasible dates (next day air, carrier B).

Just dig into the help documentation and the configuration guides and you should be able to figure all this out.  I'm sure I left out some crucial details

Mac McLarin

[Former Member]

Hi William,

Thanks for your reply, I have following questions can you please help me how we can model below points.

1.       Optimizing parcel by service level (ground instead of air express, 2-day air vs 3-day air, etc)

2.       Parcel consolidated into Air Freight

3.       Parcel consolidated into LTL

Thanks,

Venu

[former_member203115]

HI, Venu - now you are asking much tougher questions 

optimizing parcel by service level:  optimize how?  By lowest cost?  Use standard DSO + Parcel setup with scheduling parameters in the freight agreement as previously described.

consolidation questions:  now you are talking about Pooling - model using transshipment points and lanes to / from.  Optimizing much tougher here due to limitations of planning cost parameters in planning cost profile vs lane which don't begin to address the complexities of actual parcel / LTL / Air freight ratings + fuel surcharges + accessorials.  You may have to devise a custom approach.  I had one client that build a slick consolidation job for freight units (based on common o/d pair, incoterms, etc.) but again that was custom.  Once they had that consolidated freight unit they used the DSO / Freight agreement to determine low cost options (parcel / LTL) that met their scheduling requirements.

Also - in any pooling arrangement you have to make sure that the carrier will permit pooling as this may reduce their revenue.  

Hope this helps.

Mac McLarin

[Former Member]

Hi William,

Thanks for your reply, it is very helpful.

For my below questions I know you have given a insight about it, but still can you look at below structure. 

Is it possible to optimize parcel freight unit by service level with transit time? lets say my FU is 3 days transit time.

Parcel Service Provider charges by service level wise

DHL

Ground - 3 Days - $100

Express Air - 2 Days - $250

Air - 3 Days - $175

FedEx

Ground - 3 Days - $90

Express Air - 2 Days - $240

Air - 3 Days - $165

In this case least cost carrier is FedEx once parcel carrier is selected with in service levels does it perform optimization? in this case I expect TM to choose FedEx Ground service level, because it is cheapest and meets my FU delivery date as well, is it how it works?

One more questions -

For parcel service provider rates are by zones for each carrier. For example zip code 60606 FedEx zone will be Zone1 and DHL zone will be Zone2 how to model this kind of transportation lane?

For parcel shipment did you had any customer routing guide? Meaning customer will have specific requirements - weights/volumes/quantities/source/destination wise assign preferred carrier to FU/FO - Is it possible out-of-box solution?

I appreciate your help on this.

Thanks,

Venu

[former_member203115]

HI, Venu

I strongly suggest that you get a test system going and start testing these scenarios yourself.  This is the only way you will really address those questions.

But - out of the box the Parcel configuration (DSO, star-shaped schema, Freight agreement line items by service level, zone, etc. etc.....) will select only the options that meet your transit time criteria (<3 days in your example) and then (out of the box) it will select the cheapest option.

As to your zone question:  consider using preconditions for your zone /  zone combinations.  If there are a lot of these then you might need some enhancements to set up a condition or an external determination strategy.  Packaging material types (packet, box, heavy box, etc.) can also be part of this logic if necessary.

As to the customer routing guide:  consider a small Carrier Selection strategy enhancement which will incorporate some sort of condition based on your customer requirements:  say, ship-to, incoterms...) and the condition can derive the correct carrier.  BRF+ options are very powerful if your determination logic gets to be complex.  This option worked very well for several of my clients.

Hope this helps

Mac McLarin