OTM FTL (Full Truckload) rates are one of the required configuration to setup for your shipment planning. You should always configure this rate model to be setup as a default rates. These are some tips that you will find useful for FTL rates setup.
A Default FTL Rate
The setup of FTL default rate will always help you in shipment planning and testing. There are times where you need to test shipments without the need of accurate rating. The basic FTL setup are usually by shipment or equipment. The key parameters to take note for equipment rate model are:
- Weight
- Volume
- Hazardous
- Lanes
- Service Provider
Below settings can be defaulted to dummy values. If not, you can populate these fields in your rates to fine tune your ratings:
- Service Time
- Corporation Profile
- Rate Distance
It is best to keep your FTL to the simplest form because it will speed up your masterdata collection.
Dummy Rate Cost
OTM will pick the lowest cost for these shipment planning. Thus, you may set a dummy high value for these rare costs. Do take note that these default are suitable for initial testing and debugging of your agents. Once you are moving to production, do deactivate these rate cost. You may also wish to retain these dummy values to allow shipment planning to proceed for no rates scenarios.
FTL rates should always be the first rate model to setup when you configure OTM for the first time. This will help you in testing and configuration for fresh OTM setup.
Danny Kwok 