SAP Transportation Management
from
Classic ECC Transportation (LE-TRA)
to
S/4 Transportation Management (TM)
The History of LE to LE-TRA to TM
In 2010, Transportation management in SAP started as a standalone SAP Business Suite application (as part of the APO system). Now, transportation management has been incorporated in SAP S/4HANA, and all future enhancements and upgrades will be made to the SAP S/4HANA product until 2040 for present Core.
Evolution of Transportation Management in SAP
The History of LE to LE-TRA to TM
SAP TM application originated in the logistics application of R/3 as a part of LE-TRA and it allowed users to plan and dispatch multiple deliveries together while creating shipment document. The initial integration is only for the SD module. Other important functions like calculation calculation of transportation charge and vendor settlement also included to integration to FI, FI-AP and CO.
This R/3 transportation system had mainly manual and some rule based planning options like deliveries with same shipping point, postal code could be grouped together also the application controlled dangerous goods check and connected with SAP EHS (essential manual steps).
With the introduction of the APO system for Advanced PP Planning in 1998/1989, and later in the year 2000 SAP provided APO 3.0 with TP/VS for complex transportation planning and more optimization for allocating the sales orders, resources for meeting delivery deadlines and capable of planning at the Sales order level and also at delivery level, changes in delivery etc. TV/PS runs on the SCM component as a part of SAP APO system. After planning completion of shipments communicated to ERP system for further document printing and settlement.
SAP came up with centralized solution as Event Management to track and control planned and actual business events.
The History of LE to LE-TRA to TM
SAP introduced the centralized solution as Event Management to track and control planned and actual business events across the many SAP solutions like R/3, BW, CRM, SRM, APO, SEM etc.
Key Features of EM -
With the SAP Event Management application your company can monitor and manage events across your distributed processes involving different dispersed partners, inventories and assets. It captures events from your system and your partner's systems, analyzes them against it's predefined plan and alerts or workflows a response to the required people to react of deviations are found. It comes integrated with SAP NetWeaver BI and SAP Auto-Id Infrastructure (RFID enabled scenarios).
Key Components of EM -
The History of LE to LE-TRA to TM
SAP TM 6.0 and 7.0 evolved from SAP TV/PS solution. SAP TM designed to map complex transportation network and supports the entire business process. The solution consists of optimization algorithms for transport and route determination.
SAP TM 8.0 the architecture redesigned and execution improved. SAP TM improving and evolving according to mobility friendly elements.
Key Benefits -
The History of LE to LE-TRA to TM
SAP TM 9.0 introduced to provide comprehensive and seamless integration with OTC (SD Order-to-Cash) and PTP (MM Procure-to-Pay) process cycles for timely execution and updates.
Planning features are available for supporting Order Management and integrated Freight Settlement available with billing and Invoicing that help to speed up the Business Process Cycles.
TP/VS uses a state-of-the-art optimizer algorithm that is cost-based and capacity-based. This help the Transportation to plans and optimizes shipments and deliveries.
SAP TM 9.0 (2013) and beyond -
SAP TM supports both domestic and international shipment planning with ocean freight booking and customs. Transportation planning cockpit tool allows users to see order details, map transit routes and mass processing. SAP ERP takes order and SAP TM goes from order to carrier tendering as a smooth process and without user involvement.
This included document creation, status management, printing of bills of lading, labels and many more. SAP EHS integrated for dangerous goods handling and for international shipping ,customs and compliance management with SAP GTS is supported with export documents.
Different types of transportation requests are available in SAP TM like freight forwarding orders, order based transportation requirements(OTR) and delivery based transportation requirements(DTR)
After receiving transportation requirement freight units are created. Freight units are basic elements like pallet or containers and used for planning.
Freight orders will include manual or system generated transportation planning activities. Freight orders will be created by planning , consolidating freight units , booked capacity and scheduled means of transport. Once this freight order gets completed transport orders triggers and settlement processing begins.
SAP TM 9.0 (2013) and beyond -
By using forwarding order management component in SAP TM users can create , edit and confirms forwarding orders from ordering parties also data can be entered as forwarding quotation and sent to ordering party then based on the forwarding quotation user can create forwarding order.
SAP TM has the ability to perform advanced planning activities. Freight orders used for lad transportation and freight booking used for air and sea transportation.
Transportation planning processes include-
SAP TM 9.0 (2013) and beyond -
In addition to advanced planning there are added benefits generation of delivery documents and shipping documents in SAP ERP other system interfaces. Application of analytics to analyze and adjust business processes
Integrated with SAP EHS, SAP EWM , SAP EM(Event management)
Settlement process supports for
Transportation management supports is a proposed “Complete Transportation” that supports all kinds of complex scenarios for shipper(s) and logistic service provider(s):
ECC Transportation vs S/4 Transportation Management
SAP LE-TRA
SAP TM
SD Order/
MM PO
SD Order/
MM PO
Inbound Delivery
Outbound Delivery
Inbound Delivery
Outbound Delivery
Freight Unit
Planning
Planning
Shipment Document
Freight
Order
Freight Cost Document
Freight Settlement Document
Carrier
Invoice
Verification
Carrier
Invoice
Verification
Updated Q4.2022
The classic application Logistic Execution Transportation shall be brought to its end of lifecycle. Therefore, SAP already announced in the year 2014 that LE-TRA is not the target architecture within SAP S/4HANA and the alternative functionality is the basic Version of Transportation Management. In detail, it would be the selected features of SAP S/4HANA Supply Chain for transportation management, which is already available within SAP S/4HANA.
The background of Compatibility Scope Matrix for SAP S/4HANA can be found in the note 2269324. Please pay particular attention to the sentence under (1) as LE-TRA is an exceptional case and had a change in the validity date: The use right for the LE-TRA application (and all its objects / transactions) in SAP S/4HANA on premise will last until end of 2030.
Please note the following exception:
Details on the end of lifetime in SAP S/4HANA for LE-TRA can be found in the simplification item note 2270199.
Updated Q3.2023