SAP Transportation Management Planning Training Course

Course overview

Transportation planners must turn sales orders, stock transfers and delivery requirements into feasible, cost-controlled freight movements while balancing carrier capacity, service commitments, equipment constraints and changing demand. SAP Transportation Management provides the planning engine, but organisations often underuse it when master data, planning profiles, freight agreements and optimiser settings are not understood together. This course addresses the practical work of configuring and operating SAP TM planning processes that planners can trust and managers can measure.

Participants learn how SAP TM structures transportation demand through freight units, how to create and refine freight orders and freight bookings, and how to apply manual, interactive and optimiser-based planning. The course covers transportation lanes, locations, resources, vehicle capacities, freight agreements, carrier selection, tendering and charge calculation. Participants gain the ability to evaluate planning results, resolve capacity and incompatibility issues, and make defensible trade-offs between consolidation, cost and service.

Delivery combines guided SAP TM demonstrations with scenario-based exercises using realistic distribution requirements, carrier constraints and cross-regional transport lanes. Each participant completes a planning workbook and a capstone transport plan containing freight unit assignments, planned freight orders, carrier decisions, calculated charges and exception-resolution notes. The certificate confirms completion of five days of instructor-led SAP Transportation Management Planning training.

The course is suited to logistics professionals moving into SAP TM, functional consultants supporting transportation processes, and supply chain teams preparing for SAP S/4HANA Transportation Management adoption or process improvement.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Create freight units from transportation demand and assess their planning relevance
• Configure planning-relevant master data including locations, transportation lanes, resources and capacities
• Build freight orders and freight bookings using manual and interactive planning methods
• Apply SAP TM optimiser settings to consolidate demand into feasible transport plans
• Maintain freight agreements, rate tables and charge calculation conditions for carrier comparison
• Select carriers and execute tendering decisions using cost, capacity and service criteria
• Analyse planning exceptions, incompatibilities and capacity conflicts in the Transportation Cockpit
• Produce an end-to-end transport planning workbook with documented planning decisions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Transportation Planners — who need to consolidate transport demand into feasible freight orders
• Logistics Coordinators — who manage carrier assignments, delivery commitments and transport exceptions
• SAP TM Key Users — who support planners and maintain planning-relevant process knowledge
• Supply Chain Analysts — who evaluate freight cost, utilisation and carrier-service trade-offs
• SAP Functional Consultants — who configure and test SAP TM planning processes for business teams
• Distribution Managers — who need visibility of how SAP TM decisions affect cost and service

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand core outbound or inbound logistics concepts, including shipments, carriers, delivery dates, transport capacity, freight cost and basic order-to-delivery flow. Experience using SAP S/4HANA or another ERP system is helpful, particularly in sales, purchasing, delivery or warehouse processes. Familiarity with SAP Fiori navigation and spreadsheet-based transport planning will make the exercises easier. No prior SAP TM configuration experience, ABAP programming, integration development or advanced optimisation knowledge is required. Complete beginners can attend, but should expect a structured introduction to SAP TM terminology before working through planning scenarios.

Training methodology

The instructor uses a working SAP TM training environment to demonstrate each planning decision before participants complete it themselves in SAP Fiori and the Transportation Cockpit. Exercises progress from master-data review and freight unit creation to interactive planning, optimiser runs, carrier selection and charge comparison. Small groups work through a distribution case with competing service dates, vehicle capacities and carrier rates, then explain their planning choices. On day five, participants convert their results into an application plan identifying the SAP TM process, master-data dependencies and operational measures relevant to their workplace.

Course outline

Day 1: SAP TM Planning Foundations

• SAP Transportation Management process architecture in SAP S/4HANA
• Transportation demand, freight units and freight unit building rules
• SAP Fiori roles, apps and Transportation Cockpit navigation
• Locations, business partners and organisational structures
• Transportation lanes, means of transport and transportation groups
• Resource capacities, equipment types and vehicle constraints
• Planning profiles and planning-relevant master-data relationships

Workshop: Participants review a distribution master-data set and create a planning-readiness checklist for a regional transport network.

Day 2: Freight Unit and Order Planning

• Creating and reviewing freight units from order and delivery demand
• Freight unit stages, dates and transportation requirements
• Manual freight order creation and demand assignment
• Interactive planning in the Transportation Cockpit
• Freight booking planning for ocean and air transport scenarios
• Stop sequencing, pickup-delivery relationships and route feasibility
• Splitting, merging and reassigning freight units during replanning

Workshop: Participants convert a set of customer deliveries into planned freight orders and document the consolidation logic used.

Day 3: Optimisation and Capacity Planning

• SAP TM planning strategies and optimiser-based planning
• Optimiser objectives for cost, distance, utilisation and service
• Capacity consumption, load planning and equipment restrictions
• Incompatibility settings for products, equipment and transport modes
• Time windows, schedules and delivery-date constraints
• Planning proposals, result comparison and planner intervention
• Exception analysis for unplanned freight units and capacity conflicts

Workshop: Participants run the optimiser for constrained delivery demand, compare alternative plans and record the selected planning rationale.

Day 4: Carrier Selection, Tendering and Charges

• Carrier master data and carrier-selection criteria
• Freight agreements, purchasing organisations and agreement validity
• Rate tables, scales and charge calculation conditions
• Charge calculation for distance, weight, quantity and fixed rates
• Carrier selection through cost and service comparison
• Tendering profiles, tendering strategies and response handling
• Awarding freight orders and managing rejected tender outcomes

Workshop: Participants calculate charges for competing carriers, execute a tendering scenario and produce a carrier-award recommendation.

Day 5: Planning Control and Workplace Application

• Transportation Cockpit monitoring views and planning alerts
• Exception management for missed dates, capacity shortages and planning failures
• Replanning freight orders after demand and carrier changes
• Planning status management and handover to transportation execution
• Key planning measures for utilisation, cost and service performance
• SAP TM planning test scenarios and user-acceptance criteria
• Operational governance for planner roles, master data and escalation paths

Workshop: Participants complete an end-to-end planning case and produce a transport plan, exception log and 30-day SAP TM application plan.

Tools & standards covered

SAP Transportation Management, SAP S/4HANA, SAP Fiori Launchpad, SAP Transportation Cockpit

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions