About Modeling Orders with a High Volume of Lines

Orders with a high volume of order lines occur when the order management or purchase orders are entered into OTM with very detailed Stock keeping unit (SKU) level data. From a transportation standpoint, the system needs to consider the lines at the shipping commodity level in respect to temperature, hazardous, and freight classifications. At this level, there are typically only a few different item classifications and not at the detailed SKU level which can be hundreds to even thousands per order. A standard transportation order will have a range of order release lines that are between 1 and 50. An order that has over 50 order release lines can begin to see sluggish processing in the bulk plan, loading of detailed line UIs, and integrations due to the number of order lines. An order that has hundreds of lines can be modeled as an Aggregate order described here and will have improved system performance. This topic describes how OTM will take the detailed level line information that was entered on the order base and then aggregate it to the higher level transportation shipping commodity item when creating the order release.

OTM models orders as an order base and an order release. For more information, see the Order Management Guide in the online help. An order base line that is defined in OTM for aggregation will be fully released into the order release at the time of processing. The concept of release instructions for part of the order base line is not supported for aggregate lines. Aggregate lines are high volume lines containing a small quantity for a specific SKU and are not managed as bulk releases over time.

The process of aggregating high volume order base lines to order releases is based on the following criteria:

Defining the order configuration to model aggregate lines.
Creating a packaged item category to categorize the packaged items into higher level classification for transportation constraints.
Mapping the packaged item to the packaged item category.
Existing order releasing logic will process the order base lines into aggregated order release lines.
Viewing the detailed level order lines while planning orders and shipments via SmartLinks.

This topic describes the process involved in configuring aggregated order types.

Configuration

You need to configure the following parameters and business objects as a prerequisite:

Create an Order Configuration

On the Order Base Tab – Select the Aggregate Lines check box.

Note: The Aggregate Lines field only shows on the Order Base Tab when the Order Configuration field of Order Base/Release Creation is set to Line. It does not appear when it is set to Ship Unit.

- By aggregating lines with the same packaged item category, fewer order release lines will be generated.
Define the Order Configuration ID for the orders where you want to aggregate the lines.
A public domain Order Configuration Record is released as well. It is called AGGREGATE LINE PREPACK. You can take this record as a starting point and copy it to create your own Order Configuration.
The Splittable flag on the order release line will be set to no (off) when order release lines are built from an aggregate order base.

Define a Packaged Item Category

A packaged item category is the grouping of detailed level packaged items into the category that is important from a transportation standpoint. This category defines the packaged items with regards to cost, temperature control, equipment needs, etc. An example of this is categorizing the orders for a grocery store as Frozen, Fresh, or Dry Goods.
Define the constraint limits to enforce when making the order release lines for this packaged item category. When creating the aggregate lines, if the weight or volume is higher than the limits defined a new order release line will be created.
Define the representative packaged item for the category.
- When order base lines are aggregated during order releasing, the representative packaged item for the category becomes the packaged item defined on the order release line. This Representative Packaged Item ID can refer to an existing Packaged Item ID that has the characteristics for temperature, commodity, etc that should be used during the planning phase on the order release, or this Representative Packaged Item can be a separate Packaged Item ID that is added to model these aggregated lines. For example:
  - Packaged Item = Pens and Category ID = Office Supplies
  - Packaged Item = Paper and Category ID = Office Supplies
  - Packaged Item = Notebooks and Category ID = Office Supplies
  - Packaged Item = Pencils and Category ID = Office Supplies
  - Category ID = Office Supplies

Option 1

You can set the representative packaged item to be Pens. In this case, the order release line packaged item will say PENS.

Category ID = Office Supplies and Representative Package Item = Pens

Option 2

You can add a new packaged item for Office Supplies, although this is not an actual ordered item. In this case, the order release line packaged item will say OFFICE SUPPLIES.

Create a new packaged item for Office Supplies.
Packaged Item = Office Supplies and Category ID is blank
Category ID = Office Supplies and Representative Packaged Item = Office Supplies

Map the Packaged Item to the Packaged Item Category

For the Packaged Item that OTM is going to aggregate to the category level when building order releases: enter the Category ID field.
Leave the Packaged Item Category field blank for the packaged items that are not to be aggregated.

Perform Order Releasing

Perform order releasing to create the order release from the order base containing the aggregated lines.

Process

This section explains the process involved in aggregating the order lines and how that process fits into the overall shipping flow.

Entering the Order Base

The integration flow to OTM should map into the order base object. This allows you to retain the detailed line information at the order base level and the aggregated data at the order release level. The detailed level order base line data can be used for documentation, execution and integrations related to the order shipping. This will allow for the detail SKU level information to be retained in OTM while allowing the planning process to manage the orders at the transportation category and thus improve system efficiencies.

Processing Rules

The order base configuration needs to have the aggregate lines value set to true in order for the aggregation logic defined below to process. The static data of Packaged Item and Packaged Item Category can be setup and the use of the Order Configuration aggregate check box will determine the orders in OTM that are aggregated. If the order configuration is setup to aggregate but the Packaged Item Category is not defined for an order line – that order line will be aggregated to itself resulting in a 1:1 aggregation.
Release Method – During the Releasing Logic step OTM processes the order base lines and creates the order release lines based on the rules defined in the order configuration. The next step takes the order release lines and creates the ship units for the lines based on the rules defined in the order configuration. The aggregate order logic follows this same pattern. This means that the aggregated lines that were created in OTM can then be processed as Auto-Calc release method and have OTM determine the best configuration and ship units to use for this order. The release methods of One-to-One and Prepack are supported as well.

Order Base Release Actions through UI Actions

On the Order Base Manager, the following actions:

Release Order Base– This action will create the order release. If the aggregate check box is set to true, the order will contain the aggregated lines. If the order configuration does not have the aggregate check box set to true, the order will not be aggregated. This single action determines the appropriate logic path to follow.
Release Lines: This action does not apply when the aggregate check box is set to true.

On the Order Base Line Manager, the following actions will not process when the order selected has an order configuration with aggregate lines defined.

Order Base Line Packing
Ready To Ship
Release Lines
Release Remaining Order Amount
Release Total Order Amount
Simple Ready To Ship

Creating the Order Release through Process Manager

The Process Manager Release Orders will process both aggregate and non aggregated order bases.

Order Releasing Agent Action

The Release Order Base agent action is mostly designed to handle the processing of order release instructions and is therefore not relevant for order bases that have aggregation defined. When the parameter is set to Release Remaining Amount and Release Unprocessed Release Instructions this agent will not process aggregate order base. When the parameter is set to Release Total Amount, this agent will only process if the order line has not yet been released. If any of the lines have already been released the order will not process.

Aggregation Logic Details

When processing the order base for an aggregated order, multiple order releases can be created. This is not a typical use case but it can occur. The order base lines process through the bundling logic prior to creating the order release line. The bundle logic checks the ship and delivery dates and source and destination locations for the order base lines to see that they are consistent prior to creating the order release.
Many of the fields are summed from the detailed order base lines to the order release lines when doing the aggregation. The weight, volume and declared value fields are summed.
The ERU and PRU fields are also "summed" up from the order base lines to the aggregated order release line.
For the following order base line fields, OTM will check to see if the values are the same on the detailed order base line record. If the values are same, these values will be copied to the order release line.
- Item
- Packaging Unit
- Packaging Unit Count
- Number of Layers on Transport Handling Unit
- Quantity Per Layer
- Tag1, Tag2, Tag3, Tag4
These order base line fields have specific processing logic associated with them:
- Transport Handling Unit: This will be set if all of the order base lines that are aggregated have the same value. If they do not, the packaged item on the order release will be checked to see if the transport handling unit is defined there. If it is defined, that value will be used. If it is not defined, it will be blank.
- Transport Handling Unit Profile: This will be set if all of the order base lines that are aggregated have the same value. If they do not, the packaged item on the order release will be checked to see if the transport handling unit profile is defined there. If it is defined, that value will be used. If it is not defined, it will be blank.
- Splittable: This will be set to Yes if all of the order base lines that are to be aggregated have a value of yes.
- The order base line attributes will be copied to the aggregate line.

Viewing Aggregated Information

From the Order Base Line you can view the order release that the line was aggregated to. The Order Release Line ID field is on the order base line manager.
The SmartLink – View Related Order Base Lines is available from the following managers:
- Order Release Manager
- Shipment Manager