Freight Unit in SAP TM | Definition | Creation | Building Rules | Real Life Examples

If you are learning SAP Transportation Management, then the freight unit is the first document you need to understand well. It can be found in nearly every planning screen, every freight order and every execution step in SAP TM. Most day-to-day transportation issues can be solved quickly by consultants who understand how a freight unit in SAP TM is constructed, split and planned.

In this guide, we explain the freight unit in simple terms. You will learn what it is, how it is created, how the rules of freight unit building work, how it differs from a freight order, and what problems consultants face in real projects.

Contents

• What is freight unit in SAP TM?
• The Importance of Freight Units in Transportation Planning
• Creating a freight unit .
• Freight unit building rule (FUBR) definition
• Freight unit structure and key fields
• Freight Unit Statuses and Lifecycle
• Freight order & freight unit
• Real time example
• Common problems and troubleshooting
• Skills and a career worth it
• Common Questions

What is Freight Unit in SAP TM?

In SAP TM, a freight unit is a document that represents a set of goods to be transported together as one planning object. The smallest unit that the system schedules and allocates to a transportation resource. Think of it as answering the question "What exactly has to move, from where to where, and by what time?"

The freight unit is the document that represents a transportation requirement in SAP S/4HANA Transportation Management, according to SAP. It covers where the goods are being sent from and to, the pickup and delivery dates, the number, their weight and volume, and the products being shipped.

A freight unit doesn’t move a truck. It talks only about demand. A freight order is the real capacity and the movement . You plan the freight order later .

Freight Units and Transportation Planning

Transportation planners do not plan sales orders or purchase orders. They are planning freight units. This design provides three major benefits to SAP TM.

• Planning object standard: Orders from various sources (e.g. sales, purchasing, stock transfers) are converted to freight units. The planner uses a single uniform document.
• Flexible consolidation: Allows to consolidate multiple freight units traveling on similar routes into a single freight order, thus reducing cost per shipment.
• Clear splitting: You can divide a big order into multiple freight units. Each one can travel on a different vehicle, route or date.

Without freight units the transportation planner would have to rely on the ERP document structure, which is designed for sales and procurement and not for logistics optimization.

Creating a Freight Unit in SAP TM

There are two basic ways of creating freight units.

1. Automatic generation from ERP documents

In an integrated landscape with SAP S/4HANA or SAP ERP, business documents are forwarded to SAP TM, where the system creates a transportation requirement and constructs a freight unit from it. As per SAP learning material, SAP TM can create freight units from sales orders, purchase orders, stock transport orders, scheduling agreements, returns and deliveries.

The flow usually goes like this:

• Generate a sales order or purchase order in the ERP system.
• Depending on the control key and integration settings, the order is relevant for transportation.
• The order is transferred to SAP TM as an order-based transport request (OTR).
• SAP TM generates one or more freight units from the OTR.
• In the transportation cockpit, the planner views the freight units.

Later, when an outbound delivery is created, SAP TM creates a delivery-based transportation requirement (DTR). The DTR assumes the freight units that were assigned to the previous OTR. If the delivery quantity is smaller than the quantity for the freight unit, SAP TM splits the freight unit to ensure consistency of the data. If there is no freight unit, the system can build a new one, if automatic building is allowed for that DTR type.

2. Creation from a freight forwarding order

A logistics service provider receives a customer request in forwarding use cases. The forwarding order is the document that the customer sees: the freight units are created from this. This is typical of freight forwarding companies providing transportation as a service.

Understanding the Freight Unit Building Rule (FUBR)

The FUBR (or Freight Unit Building Rule for short) is the set of rules that determine how freight units are built. It provides answers to questions such as these:

• Each order item is a single freight unit or does the whole order get combined?
• Split freight units according to delivery date, ship-to party or weight?
• Should freight units have a maximum weight or volume limit?

In the SAP TM planning settings, you define a freight unit building rule. You assign the rule to the transportation requirement type and the system applies the rule each time a requirement is saved. SAP provides a standard strategy for automatic freight unit building, FUB_AUTO, and you can create your own strategies for different business logics.

Default building rule options

Significance of FUBR design

A poorly designed rule can lead to two common problems. If the granularity is too fine, you end up with thousands of small freight units that slow down planning and add to the workload. If it is too coarse, a single freight unit may be too large for a single vehicle, and the planner will have to split it manually. A good rule mirrors the actual shipping pattern of the business, such as full truckloads for bulk goods or small parcels for e-commerce.

Important Fields and Structure of a Freight Unit

A freight unit consists of a header and one or more items. Knowing the layout helps you when you read the document or write a report.

• General data: type of freight unit, origin location, destination location, business partners and organizational data.
• Items: product, quantity, gross weight, volume and the reference to the original order item.
• Dates and times: pickup window and delivery window, which are crucial to feasibility planning.
• Planning data: planning status, execution status and assigned freight order.
• Incoterms and shipping conditions: these impact the mode of transportation and who’s responsible for each leg.
• Controller settings for change: These specify how TM reacts when the freight unit or the freight order is changed.

Also, the type of the freight unit is worth attention. It controls which number ranges are allowed, which statuses are allowed, and which building rule and planning settings apply by default.

Lifecycle and statuses of freight units

Each freight unit is tested through several testing stages. Here’s a simple view of the life cycle.

• Built: The freight unit is created from an OTR, DTR or forwarding order.
• The planner then assigns it to a freight order or freight booking, either manually in the transportation cockpit or automatically by the VSR optimizer. Planned
• Execution: The freight order is released, the vehicle moves and execution events like loading, departure and arrival are reported.
• Delivered: the freight unit is marked as completed and the goods have arrived at their destination.
• Settled Freight invoicing and settlement are done based on the relevant freight orders.

When the two systems are integrated, SAP Event Management can track the freight unit execution status. This provides business and customers with end-to-end visibility.