Commitment Allocation

This page is accessed via Contract and Rate Management > Contract Management > Commitment Allocation.

Commitment allocations are percentage commitments to your carriers. Commitment allocations can be used in planning. You must configure the Plan Shipments with Carrier Commitment parameter to enable this functionality. If you set this parameter to TRUE, then the planning engine considers commitments when making service provider selections. Additionally, you must set the Commitment Lane Object Type and the Allocation Type fields to SHIPMENT, FEU or TEU in order to have the commitment allocation be considered by the planning engine.

Commitment allocations are a lane-level percentage. For example, the carrier must receive 50% of all shipments on a specific lane.

There are several types of shipments that are not allocated with regard to carrier commitments. However, they are counted towards carrier commitments, so they can affect how other shipments are allocated. These types of shipments include:

• Shipments with shared equipment.
• Handling shipments.
• Shipments with multiple equipment.
• Shipments with split orders, unless the EVALUATE_SPA_FOR_SHIPMENTS_FROM_SPLIT_ORDER parameter is true.
• Shipments with an "OREquipment", that is an equipment specified directly on the order release (under "Specific Equipment to be Ordered").

Note: When each of two carriers has an unfulfilled commitment count, but only one has an unfulfilled allocation percentage commitment, the one with the unfulfilled percentage commitment takes priority.

Adding a Commitment Allocation

1. Enter a commitment allocation ID. You can base the allocations on shipment information or order information using the Commitment Lane Object Type field. When defining Planned Allocations based on Order, you need to designate a shipment as the primary shipment using the Primary check box on the itinerary leg. More information on this field and how it affects allocations is available. If this field is set to SHIPMENT, then the commitment allocation is considered by the planning engine if the Plan Shipments with Carrier Commitment parameter is TRUE.
2. Enter a lane ID.
3. Enter an effective date and an expiration date. The effective date should be the first day of the time period it specifies, and the expiration date should be the last day of that time period. For example, for a monthly commitment for January to June, the effective date should be January 1st, and the expiration date should be June 30th. If you want the contract to start on January 15th instead of January 1st, you should create two commitments. The first would be non-recurring, indicated by leaving the Per field blank, from January 15th to January 31st, and the second would be monthly effective February 1st.
4. If the Recurring check box is selected, choose one of the time period types from the Per drop-down list.
5. If you select an option from the Per drop-down list, you can define the time period to create a recurring commitment. If you leave this list blank, then you have defined a non-recurring commitment and the Recurring check box must not be selected. If you select WEEKLY for this field, then the effective date and expiration date must be a Sunday and a Saturday, respectively.
6. You also can define an Allocation Type per commitment allocation. If you want the allocation to be used with planning, you must select an allocation type of Shipment, FEU or TEU, and Equipment Reference Unit. All other allocation types are used only for commitment tracking, but not for planning. 
   If you select the allocation type of shipment while creating a new Commitment Allocation, then there are four fields showing on the screen namely Minimum Shipment Weight, Maximum Shipment Weight, Ship Unit Count, and Equipment Group ID. These fields are optional. If the allocation type of shipment is not selected, then these fields do not appear on the new commitment allocation screen.
   You may create commitment allocation records with different equipment groups on the same lane, and commitment allocation records for different (non-overlapping) weight ranges on the same lane. 

   Note: You should be careful not to add overlapping and contradictory commitment allocations on the same lane.  For example, avoid adding a commitment allocation specifying equipment group, and another commitment allocation not specifying equipment on the same lane. In these examples, it is not clear which allocation a given shipment should count towards.

   Note: A shipment will match a commitment allocation with a weight range if the shipment's weight is strictly greater than the Minimum Shipment Weight, and less than or equal to the Maximum Shipment Weight. For example, if there are two similar commitment allocations, the first with a weight range of 0 to 20000, and the second with a weight range of 20000 to 40000, a shipment with a weight of 20000 will match the first commitment allocation, and not the second one. 

   Note: Minimum Shipment Weight should be less than the Maximum Shipment Weight. When the values are entered and saved in the fields of the new commitment allocation screen, the same will be displayed on the view screen. The Ship Unit Count is set to either 'Ignore', 'Single', or 'Multiple'. The default value is 'Ignore'.

7. If you select Equipment Reference Unit from the Allocation Type drop-down list, then you must enter an Equipment Reference Unit ID. 

   Note: When OTM allocates shipment by Equipment Reference Unit, it will try to match the percentage but will not necessarily match them down to the individual unit level, which may be arbitrarily granular. Instead, it will try to match as closely as the number of Equipment Reference Units that fit into a piece of equipment. For example, if the commitment allocation is 50%-50% by Equipment Reference Unit and 10 units fit in a piece of equipment, the logic may allocate 127 units as 67 and 60, rather than 64 and 63, because it is not allocating at the level of a single equipment.

   Note: You may create commitment allocation records with different Equipment Reference Units on the same lane. However, this scenario is only valid when each shipment contains only one of the Equipment Reference Units. Also, avoid overlapping and contradictory commitment allocations on the same lane: for example, a commitment allocation specifying an Equipment Reference Unit, and another commitment allocation not specifying an Equipment Reference Unit on the same lane.

8. Enter an allocation group if you want to be able to define different commitment allocations on the same lane.

   Note: The parameter APPLY ALLOCATION GROUP ON PRIMARY LEG ONLY impacts this. The parameter determines whether the allocation group from the order will be matched to the allocation group on the commitment allocation for all shipments on the itinerary path or only the shipment on the primary leg.

Service Provider

1. Enter a service provider.
2. Enter a rate offering to specify commitment allocation by both service provider and rate offering. The rate offering specified should be one of the service provider’s rate offerings. The service provider and rate offering need to be unique among allocation details for a specific commitment allocation. For a service provider, either create detail records that do not specify any of the service provider’s rate offerings, or create detail records that specify one or more of the service provider’s different rate offerings.

   Note: Allocation by rate offering is supported for setup, tracking, and service provider. Allocation by rate offering is not supported for route selection or container optimization.

3. Specify the corresponding percentage.
4. Click Save.
5. Click Finished.