Shipment Order, Freight Order and Tour Builder

• US 20100131431A1
• Filed: 11/26/2008
• Published: 05/27/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/26/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Esau, Andreas, Thiel, Holger, Gottlieb, Jens
• Application Number:
  US12/324,317
• Publication Number:
  US 20100131431A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/500
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/083 Shipping
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass

Abstract

The embodiments of the invention relates to a transportation management system. Specifically the embodiments of the invention relate to a system and process for generating shipment orders, freight orders and tours automatically from planned transportation activity data. The process reduces planned transportation activity to a set of frames having minimal data to reduce processing time. The frames are then evaluated for soft and hard constraints to identify a set of shipment orders, freight orders and tours. The shipment orders, freight orders and tours are then augmented from the frame state to include the necessary data.

Claims

1. A method for transportation management comprising:

receiving planned transportation activity data; and

generating a shipment order, freight order or tour automatically by a building module from the planned transportation activity data by application of a user defined business parameter to the transportation activity data.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

ordering the planned transportation activity data based on a start time, end time, location or resource availability; and

generating a planned transportation activity chain from ordered planned transportation activity.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

marshalling data into a shipment order frame, freight order frame or tour frame by a frame builder.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating the shipment order frame from the planned transportation activity chain upon identifying a location at which all freight units in the planned transportation activity chain are unloaded or loaded and upon applying a constraint on the planned transportation activity chain by the frame builder.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising

generating the shipment order frame from the planned transportation activity chain upon identifying a location at which a passive transportation is decoupled and upon applying a constraint on the planned transportation activity chain by the frame builder.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating the freight order frame from the planned transportation activity chain upon applying a constraint on the planned transportation activity chain by the frame builder.

7. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating the tour frame from the planned transportation activity data upon applying a constraint on the planned transportation activity chain by the frame builder.

8. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating the shipment order from the shipment order frame upon marshalling the planned transportation activity, a freight unit, or a shipment request into a shipment order.

9. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating the freight order from the freight order frame upon marshalling the planned transportation activity or the shipment order into the freight order.

10. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating the tour from the tour frame upon marshalling planned transportation activity data into a tour.

11. A system for transportation management comprising:

a frame builder to generate a shipment order frame, freight order frame or tour frame from a planned transportation activity chain;

an evaluation module coupled to the frame builder, the evaluation module to automatically evaluate and order planned transportation activity data; and

a completion unit coupled to the frame builder, the completion unit to generate a shipment order, freight order or tour from the shipment order frame, freight order frame or tour frame.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a shipment order storage, freight order storage or tour storage coupled to the completion module to store the shipment order, freight order or tour.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the completion unit links the shipment order, freight order or tour to an external resource.

14. A computer readable storage medium having stored therein a set of instructions, which when executed cause the computer to perform a set of operations comprising:

evaluating and ordering planned transportation activity data;

automatically generating a shipment order frame, a freight order frame or a tour frame based on a user defined business parameter; and

automatically generating a shipment order, freight order or tour based on the shipment order frame, freight order frame and tour frame.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 14, having stored therein a further set of instructions, which when executed cause the computer to perform a set of operations comprising:

reducing the planned transportation activity data to a planned transportation activity chain; and

deriving the shipment order frame, the freight order frame and tour frame from the planned transportation activity chain.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 14, having stored therein a further set of instructions, which when executed cause the computer to perform a set of operations comprising:

evaluating the planned transportation activity chain and applying hard and soft constraints to identify the shipment order, freight order or tour.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 14, having stored therein a further set of instructions, which when executed cause the computer to perform a set of operations comprising:

completing the shipment order frame, freight order frame or tour frame by insertion of planned transportation activity, freight unit, or shipment request.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein evaluating the planned transportation activity data includes determining incompatibilities between freight units.