Updating Shipping Info (Inbound Transportation)
Inbound materials that are added to the Bill of Materials have a default of 500km of truck transportation applied to them. This setting can be customized by opening up the “Edit Shipping Info” window. If the distance is already known, then the amount can be directly entered into the Shipping Distance field. If the distance is not known but the source and destination locations are known, then the distance can be approximated using the “Estimate Distance” function.
To use the “Estimate Distance” function, a source and a destination must be entered into the appropriate fields. Once the “Estimate Distance” box is checked, the shipping distance field will be updated with the point-to-point distance. While this is still an approximation, it provides a more representative result and is an appropriate approximation for air transportation (the most impactful shipping mode). Given the relatively small contribution of transportation impacts to the overall material footprint, using the default transportation distances will generally not lead to large differences. For processes completed in the same facility, the transportation distance can be set to 1 kilometer.
The shipping mode can also be customized. There are four different shipping modes available:
- Truck is the default selection and should be chosen when the transportation is primarily done by an on-the-road network (based on distance travelled).
- Ocean should be selected when the inbound transportation distance has been customized and the inbound freight is primarily transported by ocean freight (based on distance travelled).
- Rail should be selected when the inbound transportation distance has been customized and the inbound freight is primarily transported by rail freight (based on distance travelled).
- Air should be selected when the inbound transportation distance has been customized and the inbound freight is primarily transported by air freight (based on distance travelled).