1 Overview to Load and Delivery Management
This chapter contains these topics:
Load and delivery management is critical to distribution companies for two reasons:
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It saves time and money by automating and enhancing the dispatch and tracking of deliveries
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It heightens perceived customer service by integrating transportation with sales order entry
The Load and Delivery Management system allows the dispatcher to manage a depot's resources by building trips, assigning resources, and tracking resources. In order to manage resources, you must keep accurate and complete resource records. To facilitate this process, the system records and allows changes to a variety of resource information, such as vehicles and compartments, staff and drivers, and invoices and loading documents.
The integration of the Load and Delivery Management system with the Sales Order Management system allows order takers to begin the trip-building process, if necessary.
The Load and Delivery Management system provides the following functionality:
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Vehicle definition, including compartments, staff, and license and registration
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Dispatcher's work area for reviewing orders assigned to trips, as well as orders not assigned to trips
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Trip inquiry that provides a "big picture" of the activity planned at a specific depot for a specific day
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Loading notes for trips and for orders not assigned to trips
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Ability to record the actual quantities loaded on a vehicle
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Delivery document setup that helps automate printing invoices and delivery tickets
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Flexible freight calculation
The following graphic illustrates the load and delivery management process in the system.
Figure 1-1 Load and Delivery Management Process in the System
Description of "Figure 1-1 Load and Delivery Management Process in the System"
1.1 System Integration
JD Edwards World Load and Delivery Management system works hand-in-hand with the Sales Order Management system and other distribution/logistics and manufacturing systems to ensure that customer demand is met. Supply and demand components must balance to ensure that this takes place. The key is integration and the proactive use of distribution and logistics information.
1.1.1 Integration with Accounting and Distribution Systems
The following illustrates and describes how the Load and Delivery Management system integrates with Sales Order Management, general accounting, and other distribution systems:
Figure 1-2 How the Load and Delivery Management System Integrates with Sales Order Management, General Accounting, and other distribution systems
Description of "Figure 1-2 How the Load and Delivery Management System Integrates with Sales Order Management, General Accounting, and other distribution systems"
The system retrieves item prices and costs from the Inventory Management system for sales orders.
The system updates the general ledger and creates accounts receivable entries for invoices and records inventory, cost of goods sold, revenue, and tax transactions for use in cash receipts processing.
Sales Order Management also keeps track of costs associated with shipping and storage containers used when transporting packaged products.
See Container Management in the JD Edwards World Bulk Stock Management Guide.
At load and delivery confirmation, the system retrieves cost information and relieves inventory from the Inventory Management system. This retrieval information is based on any sales orders that are load and delivery confirmed as reported by the Sales Order Management system.
In addition, the system updates the general ledger based on the following scenarios:
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| Load confirm only with an invoice date in the future | System creates in-transit entries
Cycle Billing creates deferred COGS, revenue, and accounts receivable entries |
| Load confirm only without a future invoice date | System creates in-transit entries |
| Load and delivery confirm with an invoice date in the future | Cycle Billing creates inventory, deferred COGS, and Accounts Receivable entries |
The hub of the integration circle is JD Edwards World General Accounting system. Here you keep track of sales order accounting.
The Sales Order Management system works with the Address Book system to retrieve up-to-date customer billing and warehouse address information.
The Inventory Management system stores item information for the Sales Order Management, Procurement, and Manufacturing systems. It also stores sales and purchasing costs and quantities available by location and tracks holds for locations that should not be sold from. Any change in inventory valuation, count variances, or movement updates the general ledger.
The Procurement system supports direct ship order and transfer order processing. You can use the system to release receipts to backordered items.
Optionally, you can use the Advanced Pricing system in conjunction with the Sales Order Management system. This system integrates with many of the price-related programs in the Sales Order Management system and provides additional pricing, preference, reporting, and setup functionality.
Optionally, you can use the Advanced Warehouse Management system in conjunction with the Sales Order Management system. This system integrates with many of the programs related to items and provides additional reporting, picking, and setup functionality.
1.2 Features of Load and Delivery Management
1.2.1 Trip Building
The objective of trip building is to make the best use of vehicles and drivers. By building a trip, you can:
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Assemble the day's sales orders for load and delivery
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Assign a vehicle and driver
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Assign the product quantities to compartments
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Schedule the delivery sequence of the sales orders on a trip
The system provides the functionality to search for available vehicles and unassigned sales orders and assign them to trips. You can build trips for bulk and for packaged products.
Additionally, the trip building process provides you with an efficient means of downloading sales order and loading information if you are using an automated gantry system.
1.2.2 Gantry Loading
A gantry, also known as a loading rack, is a device that automates the loading of bulk products onto vehicles for delivery. A vehicle pulls up to a gantry station and an arm from a tank is attached to the vehicle for loading. A gantry interface controls the communication of loading information from the system to the gantry and of load status information from the gantry to the system. By automating the loading of bulk products you are essentially replacing the functions of the bulk load confirmation and bulk loading note.
1.2.3 Preload Documents
The Load and Delivery Management system provides several preload documents, such as picking tickets and loading notes, to help smooth your depot's loading process. These documents provide such information as the picking locations and product quantities that staff use to pick or load products for delivery. The vehicle operator uses another preload document, the trip worksheet, to record information while on a trip.
1.2.4 Load and Delivery
Accurate and timely load confirmation is key to successful product transportation. You perform load confirmation to verify the quantities of product loaded, according to the specifications of the sales order or trip. The Load and Delivery Management system enables the load confirmation of bulk and packaged products.
The delivery of a product is the moment when ownership is transferred to your customer. You perform delivery confirmation to verify the quantities of product delivered, according to the specifications of the load confirmation. Delivery confirmation can be completed for all types of deliveries, such as for bulk products, packaged products, and milk run trips. You can confirm the delivery of one trip or one order at a time, or you can confirm multiple deliveries at the same time.
The system improves inventory accuracy by:
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Making the necessary inventory adjustments for bulk products to account for temperature and density readings taken during the loading process
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Allowing you to record valid test results of a bulk product before you can successfully load confirm
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Changing the status of a bulk or packaged product order to be eligible for batch document production or automatically triggering the printing of delivery documents
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Creating historical records of each transaction and preventing load confirmation of bulk products if predefined requirements are not met
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Allowing you to perform a batch delivery confirmation when the bulk or packaged product quantity delivered equals the quantity loaded
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Allowing you to record the disposition of remaining bulk quantities during delivery confirmation
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Making the necessary journal entries to the system for bulk and packaged products
The Load and Delivery Management system uses its gantry subsystem to communicate with the gantry custom software system and the gantry hardware. This communication enables you to use the gantry hardware to automatically load actual quantities during load confirmation.
The Load and Delivery Management system also supports the aviation and marine industry. When you confirm load and delivery, the programs allow you to enter additional sales order information for aviation and marine orders.
1.2.5 Delivery Documents
Delivery documents, invoices, and delivery tickets generally provide the delivery instructions for an order or trip and specify the products and quantities to deliver. They serve to transfer ownership of the products to the customer. Some types might also specify the product price and additional charges.
Delivery documents must be predefined in the system by your company. Then, you can preprint delivery documents prior to load confirmation or print them during load confirmation. Additionally, you can set up these delivery documents so that they are numerically controlled.
1.2.6 Freight Calculation
As part of your load and delivery management operations, you can calculate freight charges to customers and calculate freight charges to pay your suppliers. The system allows you to specify a fee based on a fixed freight rate, on a geographical zone, on distance traveled, or any combination of these.
1.2.7 Reports and Inquiries
The Load and Delivery Management system provides several inquiries and reports that you can use to review load and delivery transaction information for trips, vehicles, or orders.
You can:
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Review the trips that a specific order is on by using the Load and Delivery Order Inquiry
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Review the transaction records that have been created during the processing completed on a given day by using the Load and Delivery Ledger Inquiry
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Track in-transit inventory and review product left on board a vehicle by using the In-Transit Balance by Vehicle Inquiry
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Track in-transit inventory for a specific item and review product left on board a vehicle by using the In-Transit Balance by Item Inquiry
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Print the In-Transit Inventory Report to review the inventory currently in-transit, that is, the product on a vehicle between load confirmation and delivery confirmation
1.2.8 Technical Operations
Technical operations consist of purging obsolete trip records from the system, locating or changing a trip status, and purging gantry records. These procedures are necessary to keep your system and operations running smoothly and efficiently.
1.2.9 Load and Delivery Constants Setup
You set up load and delivery constants for each depot and mode of transport. The system uses this constant information to provide default information on forms throughout the Load and Delivery Management system.
1.2.10 Vehicle Setup
You must define vehicle information to the Load and Delivery Management system to be used for the trip creation and delivery processes. The system utilizes vehicle information to effectively track and manage resources.
You can set up physically connected vehicles as a single logical entity, called a connected vehicle. The connected vehicle might be rail cars joined temporarily to form a train, or trucks and trailers attached to one another. You connect vehicles to streamline the trip building and load confirmation process.
For bulk products, you define prohibited product load sequences and prohibited product mix to specify which products cannot be safely loaded next onto a vehicle without flushing the compartment or which products cannot safely be loaded together on a vehicle.
1.2.11 Staff Setup
Setting up staff allows you to assign a staff member, such as a driver, to a vehicle or to a depot, depending upon the job that the individual performs. If you do not want staff permanently assigned to a specific vehicle, you can assign them to a depot. You also set up staff license information by staff number.
1.2.12 Depot Throughput Capacity Setup
Setting up throughput capacity for each depot requires that you record the depot's capacity to deliver product on a given day. The values you provide as input for depot throughput capacity are estimates derived from experience. They are not calculated by the system based on actual inventory or resource availability. The dispatcher accesses the Resource Load Inquiry program to determine if the depot capacity is sufficient to meet the planned product loading by trips and sales orders.
1.2.13 Delivery Document Printing Setup
You must complete the setup for delivery documents before you can successfully print documents. The setup functions automate your process for printing delivery documents.
Delivery document printing setup includes defining delivery document preferences for customizing the way documents are printed. Optionally, you can define the print subsystem for printing delivery documents that are produced during load confirmation and do not require print control.
1.2.14 Freight Calculation Setup
Freight calculation setup consists of creating freight tables to enable the system to bill freight charges to customers and pay freight charges to suppliers. You use separate freight tables to define freight fees. The system uses the values you define in freight tables to calculate freight rates based on:
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Geographic delivery zones
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Delivery distances, quantities, or distances and quantities
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Fixed fees
You create Freight (ECS) preferences to link a sales order detail line to a freight table. The system uses freight tables to determine freight charges based on distance, zone, or fixed fee. The system also uses freight tables to determine whether the freight is billable, payable, or both. Use the Freight (ECS) preference to specify a freight table for a customer/customer group and item/dispatch group.
1.2.15 Load and Delivery Transaction Server Setup
Setting up the Load and Delivery Transaction Server for the Load and Delivery Management system consists of completing processing options in a Load and Delivery Transaction Server Report Writer version. You set these processing options to define:
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Next trip status
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Program versions for milk run, general ledger server, order line adjustments, and download queue interface programs
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Document type for all transactions except sales orders created during milk run processing and those charged to an organization during disposition
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General options, such as the G/L date for journal entries, adjustment or fully rebilling orders that are not loaded or delivered as ordered, and G/L journal entries
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Order and line types for sales orders created during disposition for charges to an organization
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Status and line number increments for sales orders created during disposition for charges to an organization and for milk run orders
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Options for commingled stock not owned by a depot
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Gantry default values for automatically downloading trip changes
1.2.16 Gantry (Load Rack) Setup
Gantry (Load Rack) setup is required to load bulk products on a bulk vehicle using an automated gantry or loading rack. By automating the loading of bulk products, you are essentially replacing the functions of the bulk load confirmation and bulk loading note.
Gantry setup consists of:
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Defining the gantry subsystem that enables communication between the gantry load rack and other software components of the Load and Delivery Management system
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Setting up interface constants to establish communications parameters between the gantry subsystem and the Load and Delivery Management system
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Setting up report writer programs to define a set of programs that control the processing between the Load and Delivery Management system and the gantry
1.2.17 System Setup
Before you use the Load and Delivery Management system, you need to define certain information that the system will use during processing. This information is used to customize the system for your business needs. For example, you might want to have the system use a different default branch/plant for individual users or terminals.
System setup includes the following:
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Setting up the work day calendar in which you record the days that a depot is closed, such as weekends, holidays, or planned shutdowns
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Setting up default information for each user, such as branch/plant and printer output queue
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Setting up order activity rules to establish the sequence of allowable steps that an order takes from beginning to end
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Working with user defined codes to establish and maintain a table that defines and describes valid codes for various types of information
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Understanding the automatic accounting instructions (AAIs) and determining how the G/L entries that the system generates are distributed
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Reviewing and revising AAIs as appropriate for your business needs