Understanding Routes and Loads

Transportation routes are particularly helpful if you run a manufacturing or distribution center with a predefined shipment schedule for delivering goods to a network of customers or locations. You can establish routes consisting of defined sequences of stops, assigning a ship to customer or a location to each stop. You then set up a route schedule so that each route runs on certain days of the year (daily, weekly, monthly, or at other specified intervals). Whenever you create an order for a customer with a route assignment, the system searches for a route on which the customer or location has a defined stop and that matches the scheduled shipping date.

Defining routes enables you to tell customers accurately when their shipments will arrive and to ensure that orders are prepared in time for the next scheduled shipment. You can also use route assignments to streamline your fulfillment operations. For example, you can simplify the delivery process by sorting orders released to a pick batch ID by route stop and then packing the truck in reverse stop order.

Shipment load assignments provides a method of grouping orders that should ship together. You can assign orders to loads at the following points in the fulfillment process:

• Sales order or material stock request (MSR) entries.

• Material picking feedback.

• Shipments.

You can use these groupings to streamline fulfillment operations. For example, you might want to reserve, pick, or ship order lines based on their load assignments. In addition, you use load assignments to specify weight and volume restrictions for shipments.

Normally, you implement only one management feature. Consider the following feature advantages:

• Route management, with predefined stops and schedules, gives you more control over your shipments.

• Load management, where you create new loads on an ad hoc basis, is much less structured but offers greater flexibility.

• Use both route and load management to take advantage of the weight and volume options available on the Manage Loads page, as well as transportation routes.

PeopleSoft Inventory does not perform cross-validation between route management and load management. Because both route and load definitions are associated with specific carriers and ship via IDs, assigning an order line to a load may invalidate a previously assigned route if the carrier or ship via is different from that on the route. The same is true in reverse, if you assign the order line to a route, you may invalidate a previously assigned load.