Equipment Reference Units

This page is accessed via Operational Planning > Power Data > Load Configuration > Equipment Reference Units.

The Equipment Reference Units (ERU) page allows you to define specific capacity limits. You can define an equipment reference unit for transport handling units so regardless of how Oracle Transportation Management optimizes, whether for weight, volume, or both, the equipment reference unit serves as a constraint to avoid overloading the equipment.

When loading automobiles, the number of units that fit depends on the size of the vehicle. You may want to create multiple ERUs for automobiles based on size. For example:

• Large car
• Medium car
• Small car

Note: You must set the CHECK EQUIPMENT CAPACITY IN REFERENCE UNITS parameter to TRUE in order for the planning logic to consider Equipment Reference Units.

ERU Grouping

When calculating the ERU value for the shipment, the system considers rounding up and down at different groups to model the real world considerations where for an ERU qualifier such as pallet spaces, a customer delivery, order, or set of orders going to the same final destination may need to take up a complete pallet space.

Note: ERU grouping applies to same-OD-pair shipment ship units for multi-stop shipments.

There are three ERU grouping levels:

• Order - All ship units for the same order release will be grouped together and rounded based on the threshold you define.
• Order Plan To - All ship units for multiple orders going to the same plan to or ship to location will be grouped together and rounded based on the threshold you define.
• Location -  All ship units for multiple orders going to the same destination location will be grouped based on the ERU grouping value on the location and rounded based on the threshold you define.

Validations

• There will be no split in the same group during container optimization.
• The minimum ERU for a group is one (1).
• Only ship units that are compatible will be grouped together.
• If 3D load configuration or pattern based load configuration is on, the system skips ERU grouping.
• For repacked shipment ship units, the system exclude them during ERU grouping.
• If order has an order equipment, there will be no ERU grouping.
• All ship units on the shipment must have one common ERU defined with a grouping rule.  If there are multiple ERU defined with a grouping rule, the system will not perform ERU grouping.
• When determining order priority for ERU grouped ship units, the system considers highest priority of all orders or order movements in the group.

ERU Grouping is implemented on the following business processes:

• Multi-stop shipment or shipment consolidator (this includes bulk plan order release or order movement, repack equipment, change equipment group, combine shipment actions, move order or order movement to shipment actions)
• Build shipment and Bulk Plan
• Ground schedule

Note: ERU rounding is not implemented for consol shipments.

Defining an Equipment Reference Unit

Define the equipment reference unit with an ID, Name, and Description, Domain Name, and Application Rule.  

Rounding Threshold signifies the rounding threshold between zero and one (0 and 1). Values less or equal to the threshold will be rounded down.

Rounding Grouping Level indicates the grouping level for rounding threshold. Values include: ORDER, LOCATION, and ORDER PLAN TO.

Note: You must enter values in both the fields Rounding Threshold and Rounding Grouping Level. If you enter a value in either of these fields, an error message appears.

Independent indicates whether this equipment reference unit is independent of other ERU's. When modeling ERUs, you can define each ERU to be an independent dimension used to capture capacity and consumption, such as pallet spaces or value of goods. In the case where a shipment can have a limit on the amount of pallet spaces and value of goods and identifying these as independent ERUs will allow each one to load up to the limit defined on the equipment group. For other dimensions such as size of box (ERU = Large Box, ERU = Small Box) the ERUs both contribute together with their Limit and Max so that an overall mix of large and small boxes contribute together. In this case, Large Box ERU and Small Box ERU would not be flagged as independent.

Equipment groups and transport handling units are associated with the equipment reference unit via the transport handling unit or equipment group page. Once associated, they can be viewed here.

Equipment Groups

This section displays equipment groups that are associated with this equipment reference unit. This constraint applies to any piece of equipment belonging to the Equipment Group ID shown here.

Also specified is the Number of Reference Units for this equipment group.