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Re: What's an ASN?
What you are asking are all good questions, there is no right answer.
Documents are used or misused by different people and in different
industries for different reasons. The other part of the answer is the ASN
logic or structure is limited by the architecture of the business process,
origin application and destination application. What is universally
accepted is a ASN should be generated at time of shipment, in rare cases
before the shipment to give the receiver enough time if the shipment time
is very short like the Fedex Hub across the street. The receiver may use
it for receiving to reconcile invoices, they may use it for dock
preparation, dispatch trucks among others.
>1. What is the relationship between an ASN and a packing list? Are
>they equivalent or not?
I would say what is contained in an packing list is a subset of what
a ASN contains or used for, as you are supposed to see an ASN before the
physical shipment. If you are fancy and paranoid about receiving
everything and scan in the packing list after verifying it physically it
should match the ASN.
>2. Who are the appropriate supply chain parties to send this
>document? Clearly, we should expect one from the factory as they
>prepare to ship / as they ship. Should we also expect one
>subsequently from the logistics provider? Others?
The appropriate party to generate an ASN is the origin shipper. The
logistics provider may regurgitate the ASN to the
customer/warehouse/another logistics provider as another ASN or other
document, although truly the 3PL shouldn't create an ASN. In the proper
supply chain model there is only one ASN.
>3. Are the relationships entirely dictated by the buyer? Or, are
>there other constraints / considerations? Example: Will a
>multi-container order always produce an ASN for each container as it
>is packed? Or might we alternatively receive one ASN for the complete
>order.
The customer has alot of say as to the business process as well as
the industry and the limitations of the systems involved. A multicontainer
shipment is usually treated as one shipment with one shipment number. The
ability of one ASN/Shipment to handle multiple orders/deliveries is subject
to the business process.
One thing I think alot of people should understand about EDI is it
was developed as a framework to support many business processes and replace
paper processes. It's not the tail wagging the dog and EDI dictating how
the business process should be done. All is well in the world when there
are enough EDI documents/segments and elements to support the business
process model.
Regards,
-Steve
"Karl Wolf" To:
EDI-L
< cc:
Subject: [EDI-L]
What's an ASN?
03/23/2005 12:11 PM
At first glance, this may seem like a basic question. But I am more
interested in the nuanced definition of the ASN. I know that the ASN
is appropriately sent via the 856 / DESADV message. I need to
understand the relationship of the ASN to other shipping documents,
its timing, and its content as it pertains to international shipping.
In the final analysis, this will tell me how our system should treat
this inbound "document". I have seen people equate the ASN with the
packing list i.e. that the ASN is merely the e-quivalent of the paper
packing list. I have also seen others equate the ASN with a shipment.
The latter is complicated in international shipping because
"shipment" is a moving target. While the factory may talk about an
inland shipment, a logistics provider talks about the ocean shipment.
Some questions to initiate discussion:
1. What is the relationship between an ASN and a packing list? Are
they equivalent or not?
2. Who are the appropriate supply chain parties to send this
document? Clearly, we should expect one from the factory as they
prepare to ship / as they ship. Should we also expect one
subsequently from the logistics provider? Others?
3. Are the relationships entirely dictated by the buyer? Or, are
there other constraints / considersations? Example: Will a
multi-container order always produce an ASN for each container as it
is packed? Or might we alternatively receive one ASN for the complete
order.
Thanks (in advance!) for your comments.
Karl
.
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