Combine Shipment Line Items into Handling Units
Users now have the ability to consolidate multiple shipment line items into a single handling unit. Since the system requires a minimum handling unit quantity of 1 for each shipment line item, a shipment with 10 line items would display a minimum of 10 handling units, or pallets on the shipment. If all 10 line items could be shipped on a single pallet, the system would not represent this single pallet on the shipment. Now a user can create shipment handling units and assign shipment line items onto the handling unit.
To access this functionality, from the Shipment Details screen the user can select the ellipses next to the Items in the Items card. Here a menu item called Assemble Handling Units will be available.
Selecting the Assemble Handling Unit menu option will bring up the Assemble Handling Units modal screen. Upon first entering the screen, all shipment line items with a Quantity of 1 will be displayed in the left column. If the shipment line item quantity is greater than 1, it will not be displayed since these already represent multiple handling units, and not line items that contain partial handling unit quantities.
If there are multiple delivery stops on the shipment, the right column will display all of the stops, with an option to create a new handling unit for a given stop. The user can click the Add Handling Unit link in order to create a new handling unit for the shipment.
When a new handling unit is created, the package type will default to Pallet, however this can be changed to any package type supported by the system. Default dimensions will also be populated which can be overridden by the user. When a handling unit is created it is linked to the delivery stop for which it was created. Since orders on a shipment are also linked to shipment stops, the list of available shipment line items in the left column will change to only show the shipment line items with a quantity of 1, that are associated with the delivery stop. Each shipment line item will display the number of available Pieces available that can be allocated to the new handling unit.
The user can allocate shipment line item pieces to the handling unit in 3 ways:
The Add all items button will allocate all shipment piece quantities in the left column to the handling unit
The user can edit the Add Pieces To Pallet quantity and then click Add. This will allocate the number of pieces entered to the handling unit. (In the example below, 100 of the original 200 pieces are allocated to the handling unit)
The user can click the Add link for a shipment line item, and all available pieces will be added to the handling unit
In this example when 100 pieces of Product 1 are added to the handling unit, you can see the handling unit on the right is updated with:
Handling unit’s Total Weight
Handling unit Freight Class (If shipment line items have different freight classes, the handling unit will be assigned the highest freight class of all shipment items assigned to the handling unit)
The shipment line items assigned to the handling unit will be displayed in the Shipping Items section of the handling unit
You can also see that the available number of pieces in the left column is updated to show there are 100 pieces left for the original shipment line item that can be allocated to a handling unit.
In this example, the next step performed was to select the Add All Items button which allocated the remaining shipment piece quantities to the handling unit. At this point you can see the handling unit updated with the full amount of pieces from the original 2 shipment items, and there are no longer any available or unallocated shipment line items for the stop to display in the left column.
The user can then click the Add Handling Unit link for the 2nd delivery stop on the shipment. You will see a new handling unit for stop 2 is created, and the left column now displays the shipment items with a quantity of 1 that are associated with the 2nd delivery stop.
In this example, the user Adds all of the pieces for Product 3 and Product 4 to the handling unit. The handling unit’s weight, freight class, and list of assigned shipment quantities are updated. In this example, the user chooses to leave the shipment item for Product 5 alone, since this item is already a full pallet quantity and does not need to be consolidated together with other line items onto a handling unit. At this point the user will hit the Save button to return to the Shipment Details screen.
You will see on the Shipment Details screen in the Item section that we now have a total of 3 shipment line items, where we originally started with 5 shipment line items. You can also see the number of pieces that were allocated to the 2 new handling units created, as well as see the original shipment line item for Product 5 that was left unchanged during the handling unit assembly process. If the user needs to make further edits to the handling units, they can click the Items ellipses, and re-select the Assemble Handling Units menu option. This will take the user back to the assembly screen and display the information as it looked when it was last saved.
The Bill of Lading can now be generated to reflect the new shipment configuration of now having 3 pallets on the shipment. In this first BOL image, you can see the shipment started out with a total of 5 pallets, for the 5 original shipment items where the minimum quantity of 1 was required.
The second BOL image shows the shipment’s new configuration with a total of 3 pallets or handling units. Also, each new handling unit will display the nested piece information and product descriptions from the original shipment line items. Hazmat information will also be displayed at this level, as it would be displayed for any shipment line items that are not assigned to a new handling unit.
The LTL rating process and Generate Shipping Labels function will also now recognize that this shipment now has only 3 handling units instead of the original 5 shipment items.
Note, some operations will not know what specific products and item quantities exist on each individual handling unit. Instead, they may just know there are 3 pallets, and the weights of each pallet. In this case, the user can go into the Assemble Handling Units screen and perform the following steps:
Add Handling Unit, and enter the weight (and freight class if needed for LTL rating)
Click Add Handling Unit again to create a 2nd pallet, and enter weight and freight class
Click Add Handling Unit again to create the final 3rd pallet. Click Add All Items to assign all shipment line items to the last handling unit, update the weight, then click Save.
Following this method will result in a BOL that displays the Pallet 1, Pallet 2, and Pallet 3 information, followed by all of the detailed piece information being displayed nested under the last pallet. In this way, the BOL will accurately display the total number of handling units (3), as well as all of the individual product and piece information from the original shipment line items.
The handling unit assembly functionality is activated via a feature flag while it is in Beta, prior to being generally available for all customers.