Unleash the Power of Shipping Execution 11i

Unleash the Power of Oracle Shipping Execution 11i

Bibhuti Bhusan Chand

Rapidigm Inc.

Abstract

The key to a successful distribution industry is an easy and accurate Shipping process. This paper will give you an
overview of Oracle Shipping Execution R11i. Get tips for a successful implementation and answers to your concerns
with Shipping Execution. Explore all about trips, stops, deliveries, picking and shipping process.

Introduction

There has been lot of concern with the release 11i Oracle Order Management suite of products in the Oracle user
community. Several implementation projects got postponed or detained indefinitely due to the raising questions
about the credibility of this new product. The primary concerns for any distribution industry being – “after we
implement release 11i Order Management suite of products, can we successfully ship products to our valued
customers and invoice them correctly on time”. The other side of the story – several industry leaders have chosen to
go with 11i and have successfully implemented Order Management suite of products and are using the Shipping
Execution module in full swing.

Here is an opportunity to get an insight of the Oracle Shipping Execution module release 11i. Explore the new
features of 11i specific to Shipping Execution. This paper gives a guideline how to implement the parts of Oracle
Applications specific to Oracle Shipping Execution.

This paper will give you an overview of the Oracle Shipping Execution concepts and its architecture. Get a better
understanding about Trips, Stops and Deliveries. We will discuss about the Pick Release process and Shipping
process in details. Get to know various options available to perform Pick Release and Ship Confirm.

Oracle Shipping Execution provides several features that enable you to set up a robust distribution system and
process order efficiently. Learn how you can receive and processes large number of order lines effectively.
Understand how to leverage the flexibility of the Oracle Shipping Execution module to architect it to give a shape
that fits your business process the best.

We will discuss about various issues and solutions encountered during several implementations of Shipping
Execution. Learn what are the prerequisites, mandatory setups and optional setups. Unveil various Shipping APIs
available that could be used to automate several Shipping Execution steps. Finally explore how to take advantage of
the new features available now in release 11i.

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Architecture of Shipping Execution

New User Interface

The new user interface to query Shipping related data is very user friendly and allows extensive use of Folder and
Tree capabilities.

The new 11i Shipping interface now allows you to:

• Create folders for saved queries to retrieve data quickly.
• Perform several tasks on a single form.
• Gather all information related to Shipping in a single window.
• Modify the fields to view data critical to your business.
• Utilize right mouse click functions.

Standard Order Processing Flow

Inventory AR Customer
Invoice

Pick/ Ship Enter Order

Book
Order

Inventory Schedule
Figure: 1

Figure: 1 illustrates a standard order processing flow. The steps involved in processing a standard order are:

1. Customer order is either manually entered or imported by an automated process.

2. Once the order is booked it signals the system that it is confirmed order with all required information
and is ready for being processed through the next steps using the appropriate workflow.
3. Based on the items on the order, the next step would be to either to schedule the item or build the item.
4. Then Pick and Ship these items to the Customer.

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5. Once the items are shipped, related information is transferred to Inventory and Receivables. (Oracle
Inventory and Receivables transfers the accounting information to the General Ledger.)
6. Finally the Invoice is generated in the Receivables and sent to the Customer.

The above process works well for any organization that decides not to use Trips and Stops functionality. Whereas
some organizations ship products by ground carriers, plan the trips for their delivery or have predefined routes, stops
and deliveries. If you fall to this category you may possibly want to have a standard process flow, which utilizes the
Trip and Stop capabilities introduced in Oracle Release 11i. Organizations in the distribution of food, paper and
supplies or organizations engaged in distribution of non-assembly type of items typically adopt this process.

Figure: 2 illustrate a standard order processing flow for a distribution industry using Trips and Stops. Imagine a
distribution organization, which on an average has about 15-20 trips a day, each trip comprising of about 10 - 15
stops. These trips and stops are scheduled for specific days of a week to cover specific geographical regions. The
vehicles have certain specific tolerances for total weight and volume loaded on them. Using the standard Shipping
Execution module’s functionality the following steps need to be performed:

1. Manually create Trips and Stops planned/ scheduled for the day.
2. Auto-create deliveries for each order. Alternatively select a range of orders and auto create deliveries
3. Assign these deliveries to the respective trips. This is a relatively tough task as identifying what
delivery goes on which Trip may be very labor intensive.
4. Calculate Wt./Volume for each trip. If necessary move deliveries to different trips and stops.
5. Pick Release by Trip.
6. Ship Confirm all deliveries on the Trip.
7. Close each Stop on the Trip, once Ship Confirm is completed.
8. Finally Run Auto Invoice.

Inventory AR Customer
Invoice

Ship Confirm Create Trips Enter Order

Book
Order

Picking Autocreate Deliveries

&Assign to Trips

Figure: 2

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NOTE: You can choose to have a combination of processes where some use the Trips & Stops functionality
whereas others do not.

Overview of Shipping Execution Concepts

All shipping related information like trips, stops, delivery legs, deliveries, and delivery lines is managed through a
centralized workbench called the Shipping Transaction window.

The following tasks can also be performed in the Shipping Transaction window:
• Create a delivery and assign delivery lines to the delivery
• Create trips and assign delivery lines to the trip
• Search for delivery lines and group them into deliveries and trips.
• Pick Release eligible delivery lines based on pre-defined picking criteria. Release Sequence Rules can
be defined to control the order in which picking lines are allocated to inventory. Pick Slip Grouping
Rules can be defined to define how picking lines are grouped onto pick slips.
• Schedule vehicle deliveries, assign scheduled shipment lines to a planned trip, estimate the number of
containers required for shipment, sequence deliveries within a trip, and sequence vehicle load ordering
for lines within a delivery.
• Specify shipped quantities for delivery lines. Can ship confirm or backorder a delivery.
• Assign freight charges to delivery lines or a delivery.

Query Manager

The Query Manager allows defining and saving queries to search and manage:
• Trips
• Stops
• Deliveries
• Delivery Lines and
• Containers

The Query Manager enables to perform simple to advanced queries based on various criteria you provide. It allows
you to save and share queries by name and description. Figure: 3 is the screen print of the Query Manager.

NOTE: If you want to save a query for future searches you must save it as a Personal or Public Query. Otherwise
the query is saved only temporarily for the session.
You cannot edit a Public Query if you are not the owner. However, you can copy an existing public query
and rename the same.

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Figure: 3

Data Manager

Customized queries can be created by specifying the desired search parameters and saving them as a Public or
Personal Query. These Public and Personal queries once saved, can be re-used for future searches without having to
re-enter the search parameters. Public Queries can be shared with other users across the organization. This enables to
centrally manage the queries and share them amongst authorized users. Figure: 4 is the screen print of the Data
Manager.

Figure: 4

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Overview of Trips

A trip consists of delivery lines (order line details) that are scheduled to be shipped in a specific vehicle on a specific
date by a specific carrier departing from a particular location. The delivery lines within the trip can be assigned to
multiple deliveries, allowing you to ship items to different customers or different ship-to locations. A trip must
consist of at least two stops, for example, a stop to pick up goods and another stop to drop off goods.

Creating a Trip

There are different options available when creating a trip. You can create a trip to which you can later assign
delivery lines or find the delivery lines and create a trip.

Creation of a trip can either be automatic or manual:

• Autocreating a trip:
1. For a delivery: Search for the delivery that needs to be shipped, then the delivery, trip, stops
and delivery legs can be autocreated.
2. For lines and containers: Search for the lines and containers that need to be shipped, then the
delivery, trip, stops and delivery legs can be autocreated.

• Creating a trip Manually: Manual creation of a trip, enables to have any name for the trip, manually
assign stops, deliveries, and delivery lines to the trip.

NOTE: If you do not define a name for the Trip, a default name is assigned by Shipping Execution. You can specify
a default naming convention.

Planning a Trip

Once deliveries and delivery lines have been assigned to a trip it can be planned. Once the status of the trip is set as
planned, one cannot make changes such as adding or removing delivery lines unless the trip is first unplanned.

Planning a trip validates the following:

• If the planned trip date is not in the past.
• If the weight, volume, and fill percentage does not exceed the limitations of the containers in the
delivery.
• If the minimum fill percentage is not violated.
• If the sequence numbers between the deliveries of the trip are unique for containers within the
deliveries.

NOTE: Once you plan a trip, all deliveries assigned to the trip are also automatically planned.

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Unplanning a Trip

A trip can be unplanned to make modifications/ changes to a planned trip. This would allow adding additional
delivery lines or unassigning delivery lines from a delivery within the trip.

Unplanning a trip reopens a trip while having the delivery lines remain assigned to their respective deliveries.
Unplanning a trip does the following:
• Change status of the trip to Open.
• Change status of all the deliveries on the trip to Open.

Assigning Freight Costs to a Trip

The following tasks related to freight can be performed:

• Assign new freight costs to a particular trip
• Override suggested freight costs
• Update existing freight costs.

This enables adding additional costs for a particular vehicle that the trip is using to deliver goods. Freight cost can
also be assigned to a container, delivery line, delivery, stop or a delivery leg.

Calculating Weight and Volume for a Trip

You can choose to have the weight and volume for a trip calculated automatically or manually. This is defined by
selecting Automatic or Manual option in the Weight/Volume Calculation field on the Shipping Parameters window.

If Automatic is selected, the weight and volume is calculated automatically when the status of the trip is changed to
planned, packed or ship confirmed. If Manual is selected, weight and volume can be calculated manually using the
Packing Calculator or by selecting Calculate Weight/Volume from the Actions menu.

On calculating Weight and Volume for a Trip, Shipping Execution performs the following:

• Calculates the weight, volume, and fill percentage for each open delivery
• Adds up the weight, volume of the open deliveries to the trip’s current weight, volume, and fill
percentage.
• Estimates the required number of containers for each delivery line based on container/load
relationships and the master/detail container specified on the delivery line.
• Validates that minimum fill percentage requirements are not violated.
• Validates if the fill percentage, maximum load weight and maximum internal volume does not
exceeded.

NOTE: The Actual fill percentage can only be calculated if a vehicle is specified for the trip.

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Overview of Deliveries

A set of delivery lines scheduled to be shipped to a customer’s ship-to location on a specific date and time is
contained by a delivery. Items from different sales orders as well as backorders can be included in a delivery. Several
deliveries can be grouped in one trip.

The query manager can be used to search for deliveries and the data manager can be used to create, modify, cancel,
assign, sequence, plan, unplan, and reopen deliveries. Deliveries when autocreated are grouped by the mandatory
default criteria: Ship From Location and Ship To Location. Alternatively additional grouping criteria like Customer,
Ship Method, Carrier, Freight Terms, Intermediate Ship To Location etc., can be used.

Overview of Pick Release

The Pick release process finds and releases eligible order lines that meet the release criteria and creates move orders.
The move order creates a reservation, determines the inventory source and transfers the inventory to the staging
areas. It also generates and prints the pick slips.

The Picking Engine creates the Move Order. Pick slips are created after the detailing process is complete for the
Move Order lines created at Pick Release. Auto Detailing suggests the source for materials based on picking rules
defined. The default picking rules can be set in the Organization Shipping Parameters form.

The Move Order Line Details (transaction lines) created by the detailing process must be transacted to confirm the
material drop-off at the staging areas. At this point you are allowed to report discrepancies and can change the
details. Auto Pick Confirm can be set as default in the Organization Shipping Parameters form.

The quantity and source can optionally be manually verified at pick confirm. Detailing and Pick Confirmation can
either be manually transacted through inventory or can be set up to happen automatically.

There are three ways to pick release:

• Online Pick Release: You can pick release one order immediately, thereby eliminating time spent
waiting for the order to process through the Concurrent Manager queue.

• Concurrent Pick Release: You can pick release using the Release Sales Orders function. Release
Sales Orders can be run for Picking in the background, enabling you to run other processes
simultaneously.

• SRS (Standard Report Submission) Pick Release: You can run a particular release at the same time
every day. SRS runs pick release in the background multiple times.

Overview of Ship Confirm

When you ship confirm a delivery, Shipping Execution confirms that the delivery lines associated with the delivery
have been shipped. Ship-confirming the items removes the existing reservations and performs the sales order issue

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transaction. The material picking process ends when the items are ship confirmed out of inventory.

Ship Confirm splits Staged Quantities on each line for partial shipments. If a nonzero Staged Quantity exists on a
line, this is split off from the line and automatically gets unassigned from the delivery. You are allowed to apply
special charges like freight costs, special handling charges, etc. at the time of Ship Confirm from the shipping
transaction form. UPS tracking integration is also available now.

Prerequisites for performing Ship Confirmation:

• Delivery lines must be released
• The delivery must be in Open status
• A minimum of one delivery line must be assigned to the delivery

NOTE: If order lines are not released or do not satisfy Inventory controls, a warning note appears and they are
unassigned from the delivery at Ship Confirm time.

Release 11i Shipping APIs

Oracle Shipping Execution provides a set of powerful APIs to enables the distribution organizations to achieve their
desired level of automation. This is very helpful for distribution organizations with high volume transactions. The
new Shipping Execution model communicates with Order Management through a series of APIs.

AR Order
Management

INV Shipping
Execution

EDI UPS
Shipping
Interface

Figure: 5

Some of the Shipping Execution APIs (Application Program Interface) available in release 11i are listed below:

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Trips have the following APIs:

• WSH_TRIPS_PUB.CREATE_UPDATE_TRIP
a. Allows to CREATE a new Trip and
b. Enables to UPDATE an existing Trip

• WSH_TRIPS_PUB.TRIP_ACTION
a. Allows to PLAN/ UNPLAN Trips
b. WT-VOL – Calculate weight and volume for the Trip
c. Launch PICK RELEASE to release lines related to the Trip and
d. Enables to DELETE Trips

Trip Stops have the following APIs:

• WSH_TRIP_STOP_PUB.CREATE_UPDATE_STOP
a. Enables to CREATE a new Stop record and
b. Allows to UPDATE an existing Stop record

• WSH_TRIP_STOP_PUB.STOP_ACTION
a. Allows to PLAN/ UNPLAN Stops
b. ARRIVE/ CLOSE – Enables to update departure or arrival dates and to close a Stop
c. Launches PICK RELEASE to release lines related to a Stop and
d. Allows to DELETE a Stop

Deliveries have the following APIs:

• WSH_DELIVERIES_PUB.CREATE_UPDATE_DELIVERY
a. Enables to CREATE a new Delivery record and
b. Allows to UPDATE an existing Delivery record

• WSH_DELIVERIES_PUB.DELIVERY_ACTION
a. Allows to PLAN/ UNPLAN Deliveries
b. WT-VOL – Calculate weight and volume for the Delivery
c. Enables to CONFIRM Delivery
d. PACK,RE-OPEN, IN-TRANSIT, CLOSE – Enables to update status of Delivery
e. ASSIGN-TRIP – Allows to assign Trip to a Delivery
f. UNASSIGN-TRIP – Allows to unassign a Delivery from the Trip
g. AUTOCREATE-TRIP – Enables to autocreate a Trip for the Delivery
h. Launches PICK RELEASE to release lines related to a Delivery and
i. Allows to DELETE a Delivery

Delivery lines have the following APIs:

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• WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS_PUB.DETAIL_TO_DELIVERY
a. Enables to ASSIGN a Delivery Detail to a Delivery and
b. Allows to UNASSIGN a Delivery Detail from a Delivery

• WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS_PUB.SPLIT_LINE
a. Enables to SPLIT a Delivery Detail into two Delivery Details. A Delivery Detail
needs to be split when a backorder occurs or you ship partially.

• WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS_PUB.UPDATE_SHIPPING_ATTRIBUTES
a. Enables to modify data in wsh_delivery_details to reflect any changes made by the
source system including pick release, ship confirm, split source line and other update
activities.

• WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS_PUB.AUTOCREATE_DELIVERIES
a. Creates deliveries for given delivery lines

• WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS_PUB.AUTOCREATE_DEL_TRIP
a. Creates trips and deliveries for given delivery lines

Using these Shipping Execution APIs you can automate the associated processes which would enable you to
eliminate some of the labor-intensive shipping execution tasks. More detailed information regarding these APIs can
be found in the Oracle Order Management Suite APIs and Open Interface Manual.

Overview of Standard Reports and Documents

Shipping Execution provides a variety of reports to facilitate distribution industry. Shipping related reports include
the following:

• Backorder Detail Report

• Backorder Summary Report
• Bill of Lading
• Commercial Invoice Report
• Mailing Label
• Packing Slip Report
• Pick Slip Report
• Vehicle Load Sheet Details
• Vehicle Load Sheet Summary

However to meet the organization specific requirements most of these report specifically: Pick Slip, Packing Slip and
the Mailing Labels report may need to be customized.

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Printing a Document Set

Shipping Execution allows generation and printing of bunch of reports in a set and a set of shipping documents.
These document sets could include pick release documents, pack slips and all shipping documents.

The Shipping Document Set reports are generally generated and printed automatically to support the shipping
process. Automatic printing can be setup at two different stages: at the time of Pick Release and Ship Confirm. These
reports can also be manually submitted through an SRS concurrent process.

Descriptive Flexfields in Shipping Execution

Descriptive Fexfilelds (DFF) has always been a very important tool to any implementation. You can effectively
utilize the available DFFs to meet business critical requirements specific to the shipping activity.

Some of the commonly used DDFs are:

• Additional Trip Information (WSH_TRIPS): This descriptive flexfield displays additional trip
information.
• Additional Stop Information (WSH_TRIP_STOPS): This descriptive flexfield displays additional
stop information.
• Additional Delivery Information (WSH_NEW_DELIVERIES): This descriptive flexfield displays
additional delivery information.
• Additional Delivery Detail Information (WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS): This descriptive flexfield
displays additional delivery detail information.

Conclusion

The Oracle 11i Shipping Execution architecture is designed to enable enhanced planning for distribution
organization with greater visibility to the shipping transactions and its details. It provides greater capabilities to
interface to any external system. The new Shipping Execution model provides several opportunities for automation
and overall distribution process improvement.

About The Author

Bibhuti Bhusan Chand, Senior Software Engineer with Rapidigm Inc. has over 7 years of experience in designing
and developing with various Oracle products. He has played a key role in numerous Oracle Applications
implementations including release 11i. His involvement includes analysis, business processes re-engineering, setup,
conversions, customizations, interfaces, upgrades and user training. Bhusan holds a Bachelors Degree in Electronics
Engineering and has been a regular presenter at various Oracle Conferences across the world.

Bhusan can be reached at bchand@rapidigm.com.

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