Shipment Group Rule Details in Bulk Planning

Shipment Group Rules determine the circumstances in which shipments are assembled into shipment groups during the planning process. You can configure the parameters on this page and the Detail tab to control how and when shipment groups are created.

When shipment groups are created as part of planning, the flex fields defined on the shipment group rule are automatically copied to created shipment groups. This is controlled by the parameter 'COPY SHIPMENT GROUP RULE FLEX FIELDS AUTOMATICALLY'. By default this parameter is turned OFF.

There are a few fields, such as Geographical Definition ID, Lane ID, Mode Profile, Itinerary Profile ID, that allow you to define rules for a specific requirement. The Effective Date and Expiration Date fields enable you to make the rule 'active' only for a particular time period.

There are broadly two types of rules:

• Full Shipment Group Rules: when enabled, create shipment groups that point to the entire shipments.
• Partial Shipment Group Rules: point to part of the shipment, usually corresponding to a particular order release or line.

Full Shipment Group Rules

Full shipment group rules include Match Service Provider (boolean), Match Service Schedule (boolean), Match Port of Loading (Boolean), Match Port of Discharge (Boolean), Match Reference Qualifier (String), Match Involved Party Qualifier (String). Let’s take one rule – Match Service Provider. The shipments that satisfy the basic rules (Lane ID, Mode Profile etc) are grouped according to the service providers. No two shipments with different service providers can be in the same group. For Match Reference Qualifier, for example, the value for all the shipments for this reference number must match. If this field is null, then the match rule is not in effect. The reference table is SHIPMENT_REFNUM_QUAL.

Multiple full shipment group rules can be enabled at once. If two or more full shipment group rules are enabled, the shipments are grouped together only when all the values match.

For example, if Match Service Provider and Match Port of Loading are enabled, even if the service provider for two shipments match, they cannot have the same shipment group if the port of loading is different. The full shipment group rules (individual or in combination) always create Full Shipment groups, meaning, one shipment has only one shipment group.

Partial Shipment Group Rules

In addition to the full shipment group rules, there are several partial rules such as Same Equipment (Boolean), Same Order Source (Boolean), Same Order Destination (Boolean), Match Order Release Reference Qual (String), Match Order Release Line Reference Qual (String), and Match Order Release Involved Party (String). Here, only a part of the shipment (identified by the order release or order release line). If the Same Order Source rule is enabled, only the order releases packed with the same source are grouped together. It can work in two ways:

1. Two direct shipments that can otherwise have the same shipment group, will have different shipment groups because they have different order source locations.
2. A multi-stop shipment (say, combining two order releases from different sources but same destination) will have two shipment groups, one for each order release.

Except for the Match Order Release Line Reference Qual, all other partial groups are divided by order release. This one rule groups the shipments based on order release lines.

You can have two or more partial group rules. Similar to full shipment group rules, when two or more partial shipment group rules are enabled, the groups are created to make sure all rules are adhered to. For example, if both Same Order Source and Same Order Destination are on, none of the groups can have order releases with different source or destination locations.

Partial Rules and Full Rules Enabled at the Same Time

Both partial and full shipment group rules can be enabled at the same time. When at least one partial rule is enabled, OTM will always create partial shipment groups (that is, the shipment group is order release specific). For example, let’s say Match Service Provider (full rule) and Match Order Destination (partial rule) are enabled. If you have two direct shipments that have the same destination but have different carriers, two partial shipment groups are created, one for one shipment with its order, and another for the second shipment with its order, even though there is only one order per shipment.