[shekharp]

We are in the process of modeling international shipments for our Global forwarding business unit. After having internal discussions we have come across multiple options in which we can structure the configuration and transactions.

The forwarding offices / agents are in Australia, NZ, China etc. Each of them has their own operational systems. We are planning to start using OTM for visibility to begin with and in future to start using OTM for execution purposes in the area of land logistics at origin and destination. At this stage, we will insert/update the transactions as they occur in OTM i.e. there will be no planning involved in OTM to create shipments.

1. Shipments

Scenario:

Supplier in China -- Origin Port in China --Destination Port in Australia --Deconsolidation Center ------ (Multiple deliveries to Customer stores)

In this scenario how would you model the shipments?

a. Is it better to create one sell shipment from Supplier to Customer or is it better to create multi-leg shipments?
b. If one sell is created do you just capture the events @ interim stops for visibility purposes?
c. If creating multi-leg shipments how do you maintain the relationship between the shipments considering they are created in OTM via integration inserts and there is no planning involved (no itineraries or rates)

2. Domain Structure

What kind of domain structure is suitable for this setup?

There will be thousands of customers for which freight will be moved. But complete Purchase order management customers will not be many.
Also all the involved parties on the shipments i.e. suppliers, origin and destination freight forwarders, customers, dc operators will require appropriate access to the shipments. Public tracking of containers will also be required.

I would appreciate if anyone can share their experience on the above areas.