Transportation Management with SAP LES

Shipment Documents 12.1
The preliminary leg has “1” (preliminary leg) as the Leg indicator. In the SAP standard,
you can find shipment type “0004” (preliminary leg by road). In preliminary
legs, several deliveries are collected at a specific point in advance (in our example,
Hamburg port) for further collective shipment.
This further collective shipment is called main leg with the Leg indicator, “2” (main
leg). Here as well, the SAP system provides predefined shipment types that depend
on the mode of transport, for example, “0005” (main leg by sea). In this case, all
deliveries are jointly shipped from Hamburg port to Sydney port (Australia).
From the port of destination, the deliveries are finally transferred to the ship-to
party. This shipment type is called subsequent leg. At this point, you determine
shipments in a logistically useful manner with regard to ship-to parties. The subsequent
leg has Leg indicator, “3” (subsequent leg). The SAP system predefined
this shipment type as “0006.”
There is another transportation scenario I want to mention at this point: empty
return shipment to the plant. This process can also be implemented with a specific
shipment type. “Empty outbound shipment” must be entered as the shipment
completion type here.
Using the shipment types, various processes can be set. Refer to Figure 12.3 for
this purpose. Each shipment document is identified via a number. This document
number is determined or defined either internally (after its creation in the SAP
system) or externally (manual input).
The shipment completion type only indicates whether shipments are loaded or
empty. Usually, this problem only occurs if you use your own vehicles in the
enterprise. In many cases, the vehicles return empty after the material was shipped
to the customer.
For leg determination, refer to Section 13.2. I have already mentioned the leg indicator.
It only indicates whether it is a preliminary, main, subsequent, or direct leg.
But you also control processes that you already know from delivery documents:
Shipment documents also have empty texts. You can assign output types to shipments.
Partner determination must be defined for each shipment type. You can
specify a shipping type for this shipment type. These functions are explained in the
following sections.
I have already explained that delivery documents are selected and bundled in shipments.
There are certainly processes in your enterprise for which no shipments are
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