You do not need to create a purchase order. I recommend you start with
the existing artifacts that map directly to your business, identify
missing bits (gaps), and then build out the missing bits.
What OFBiz has:
1. A good data model for creating and tracking shipments.
2. The data model includes the means to associate a shipment to a
shipping cost.
3. Sales order and invoice functionality.
What is missing:
1. Generate a sales order from a shipment or group of shipments (OOTB,
shipments are generated from a sales order, but you need it to go the
opposite way).
2. A means to include fixed assets (delivery vehicles) in the shipment
route.
3. A means to track/approve package movement along the shipment route.
If your project has provided for some consulting fees, then I would be
happy to assist you with modeling your business.
Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com
On 5/31/2014 3:33 AM, Jim S wrote:
Adrian, Pierre, thanks for your feedback.
Pierre I may not have been through in my analysis but I would like to
mention few points. The shipment logistics provider basically comes under
the distribution logistics which involves
1. Receiving the packages from client.
2. Storing the packages in the warehouse at a certain location, we call it
a distribution centre. This is need for picking later.
3. Picking the packages and deliver to the customer.
The shipment or packages from the client is an incoming shipment to the
logistics so I think best way would be to associate the incoming shipment
to a purchase order in ofbiz. Receiving the shipment will create necessary
information in the ofbiz. There is an interesting shipment type available
in ofbiz i.e. transfer I think it can be used since the shipment is really
transferred from the client to the logistics and from logistics to the
customer?
The next step is to pick the packages, lade vehicle & provide a detail of
the packages (address information, packages information) on a sheet to the
driver. We can utilize the pick sheet to create the picking and delivery
information. I think we may need to rewrite code for certain part of the
order picking in ofbiz to model it for logistics. Once the packages are
delivered, the shipment status can be updated in ofbiz.
