Ship Unit Specifications

This page is accessed via Shipment Management > Power Data > General > Ship Unit Specifications.

Ship Unit Specifications describe how freight is packaged for transportation.

Note: If you have too many ship unit specifications created in OTM, you may exceed the user interface limitation for creating the drop-down list on other pages such as order release line, order movement ship units, and so on. If so, you will get an error. The limit of ship unit specifications varies depending on variables such as your network and servers, but at most, you should not add more than a few hundred.

There are several important terms used throughout Oracle Transportation Management referring to items, how they are packaged, and how they are transported. These terms are hierarchical and include:

• Packaged Item
• Packaging Unit
• Transport Handling Unit
• Equipment Group

The following example illustrates the hierarchical relationship between them:

• Toothpaste is sold in stores by the tube. The tube would be a Packaged Item.
• Six tubes of toothpaste go into a small box. The small box would be a Packaging Unit.
• Five hundred small boxes go onto a pallet. The pallet would be a Transport Handling Unit.
• Twenty pallets fit into a twenty foot container. The container would be an Equipment Group.

Alternatively you can structure your packaged item to contain the packaging unit as an attribute. In that case, the above example would appear like this:

• The Packaged Item would be a box containing six tubes of toothpaste with a weight that is inclusive of the six tubes and the empty box.
• Five hundred small boxes go onto a pallet. The pallet would be a Transport Handling Unit.
• Twenty pallets fit into a twenty foot container. The container would be an Equipment Group.

Specifically, this page is where you define packaging units and transport handling units.

Note: Instead of creating new Ship Unit Specifications, you can use public data ones, but you cannot modify them.

You cannot edit or delete Ship Unit Specifications if they have been assigned to orders, equipment groups, or packaged items.

First, you must define a Ship Unit Specification. Then assign Packaging Units and Transport Handling Units to that specification. It is set up this way because there are times when a Packaging Unit will be shipped by itself (as a Packaging Unit), and other times when it will be shipped on a pallet (as a Transport Handling Unit). Since it can be both, a common identifier is needed for them, in this case Ship Unit Spec ID and Ship Unit Spec Name.

In the Unit Type field, specify whether this is a Packaging Unit, a Transport Handling Unit, or Both.

Note: When migrating from an earlier version of Oracle Transportation Management, notice that all the unit types are both. This is done for backward compatibility.

If you are defining a Ship Unit Spec that is a Transport Handling Unit or Both, you need to use the In/On/Max field to specify:

• In: A transport handling unit that is a box will have packaging units shipped in it. In other words, small boxes are in large boxes. If you are defining mixed (rainbow) pallets for a destination location, you must use In.
• On: A transport handling unit that is a pallet will have packaging units shipped on it. In other words, the boxes are on the pallet. This is the default value.
• Max: A transport handling unit that is an open box can hold more packaging units than the volume of the transport handling unit itself. This is because small boxes sit in, and stick out of, an open top box.

Use the following fields to define the ship unit specification:

• Priority: There are multiple levels where Priority can be defined for an item to be used in equipment packing. This works in the following hierarchy: Ship unit (highest precedence), THU, Packaged Item (if multiple packaged items exist for a single ship unit, the one with the greater load configuration rank associated is considered) and finally, Item (lowest precedence). If the ship unit level priority is not defined, then the ship unit takes the priority defined on order. The priority used in equipment packing (derived from this hierarchy) is persisted on the shipment ship unit. This helps in understanding what priority is used when analyzing the shipments. These parameters need to be on to use ship unit level priorities: USE PRIORITY IN CONOPT SORTING and PRIORITY IN USE.
• Max Length for On Mode: The maximum length for a transport handling unit or both a packaging unit and a transport handling unit when a value of On is selected from the In/On/Max drop-down list.

  Note: This field is only displayed when you choose a Unit Type of Transport Handling Unit or Both.

• Max Width for On Mode: The maximum width for a transport handling unit or both a packaging unit and a transport handling unit when a value of On is selected from the In/On/Max drop-down list.

  Note: This field is only displayed when you choose a Unit Type of Transport Handling Unit or Both.

• Max Height for On Mode: The maximum height for a transport handling unit or both a packaging unit and a transport handling unit when a value of On is selected from the In/On/Max drop-down list.

  Note: This field is only displayed when you choose a Unit Type of Transport Handling Unit or Both.

• Tare Weight: The weight of the ship unit spec empty. For example, this would be the weight of the pallet with no packaging units loaded on it.
• Max Weight: The maximum weight that can be loaded in or on the ship unit spec. For example, the maximum weight of packaging units that can be loaded on a pallet.
• Effective Volume: The volume of the empty ship unit spec. For example, if your transport handling unit is a large box, this would be the volume of it.
• Max Volume: The maximum volume of loadable space for a ship unit spec. For example, if you have an open top box, the max volume would be the total space that you could load packaging units in. In this case it could be more than the volume of the actual open top box.
• Length per Ship Unit: The length of the ship unit spec. This field is read-only if the Cylindrical check box is selected.
• Width per Ship Unit: The width of the ship unit spec. This field is read-only if the Cylindrical check box is selected.
• Height per Ship Unit: The height of the ship unit spec.
• Diameter per Ship Unit: The diameter of a ship unit spec. This field is required if the Cylinder check box is checked, otherwise, it is not used.
• Core Diameter per Ship Unit: The diameter of the inner packaging of a cylinder shaped ship unit spec. This field is not used unless the Cylinder check box is checked.
• Cylindrical: Specifies whether the ship unit spec is cylinder shaped.
• Packaging Form Code: Use this field to associate a packaging form to this ship unit spec.
• Nestable Option: Select this option if the ship unit is nestable. The Maximum Nesting Count field value is the maximum number of units which can be nested in a single stack. The Nesting Volume field is used to record the nesting volume. For Nesting Height, see Packaged Item.

  Note: When items are nested, the volume of the bottom unit is the ship unit volume. Successive items take up less room. For example, if you have 3 nestable boxes, each containing 10 cubic feet of volume and with a nesting volume of 2 cubic feet, the total volume would be calculated by adding the volume of the bottom unit to the nesting volume of each additional nested unit. So for this example, your calculation for 3 units would be 10 + 2 + 2.

Load configuration constraints on the transport handling unit override the constraints on the packaging unit.

Reference Number

Use this section to record reference numbers for the Ship Unit Spec.

Consumption in Equipment Reference Units

You can select Equipment Reference Units to limit the number of specific units being loaded on a specific Equipment Group. If any ERU level information is provided on the ship unit, it overrides the ones defined on the ship unit specification. Note that it only overrides specific ERU IDs, not all.

Note: This section is only displayed when you select a unit type of Both or Transport Handling Unit.

1. Enter an Equipment Reference Unit ID.
2. Enter the number of reference units in the Number of Reference Units field.
3. Click Save for each equipment reference unit you enter.

Capacity in Package Reference Units

Note: This section is only displayed when you select a unit type of Both or Transport Handling Unit.

1. Enter an Packaging Reference Unit ID.
2. Enter a value in the Limit Packaging Reference Unit Count field.
3. Click Save for each packaging reference unit you enter for the ship unit.