5 Things You Should Know About the Transportation Planning with SAP Rheinwerk Courses Series

In this blog post, learn about our upcoming Rheinwerk Course entitled Transportation Planning with SAP: Mastering Transportation Modes, Settings, and the TM Optimizer from the course instructor, Anton Karnaukhov.

1 What Topic Does This Course Cover?

This three-day course provides a comprehensive, scenario-driven introduction to transportation planning in SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM). It guides participants from foundational concepts through mode-specific planning, carrier selection, and the use of the TM Optimizer. The curriculum blends conceptual understanding with practical demonstrations in the Transportation Cockpit, ensuring learners can navigate manual, interactive, and automated planning processes across multimodal transportation scenarios. The course emphasizes hands-on planning logic, system behavior, configuration levers, and best practices used in real-world logistics operations.

2 Will This Course Give Me Technical Skills or Foundational Knowledge (Or Both)?

The course focuses on foundational and functional knowledge of transportation planning in SAP TM. Some technical (development, debugging, etc.) aspects of setting up transportation planning in SAP TM are also discussed, but it is not the focus of the course.

3 What Will I Specifically Learn in This Series?

The course will teach you the following:

• Explanation of the end-to-end transportation planning process in SAP TM, including manual, interactive, and automated approaches.
• Effective use of the Transportation Cockpit for resource scheduling, load building, planning adjustments, and visual map/Gantt chart interaction.
• Execution of automated planning with the TM Optimizer, understanding key constraints, cost structures, scheduling implications, and incompatibility rules.
• Configuration and application of selection profiles, incompatibilities, and planning settings to influence planning results.
• Transportation planning across multiple modes—road (common carrier/private fleet), parcel, rail, ocean, and air—using the appropriate TM objects, resources, and planning layouts.
• Set up and understanding of carrier determination using transportation lanes, conditions/routing guides, and continuous-move logic.
• Analyzing optimizer behavior, interpreting logs/explanations, and adjusting planning profiles and parameters to achieve desired results.
• Identifying enhancement options (BAdIs, pre/post processing, advanced parameters) for customer-specific planning requirements.
• Differentiating when to use manual, interactive, or automated planning to maximize efficiency and align with operational business constraints.

4 What Should I Already Know Before Taking This Series?

You should already have a basic understanding of supply chain and logistics processes (orders, shipments, carriers, modes of transport), as well as familiarity with key SAP concepts such as master data, document flow, and integration basics. It is good to have an introductory knowledge of SAP TM objects like freight units, freight orders, and resources).

Prior participation in an SAP TM overview or basic configuration course like this one is recommended, but not strictly required.

Lastly, technical skills (ABAP, coding) are not required, except for conceptual understanding in the enhancement module.

5 What Are Your Qualifications to Teach This Course?

I am a leading consultant and solution architect of SAP implementations, and the co-founder and VP of the SAP consulting firm XpertMinds, I have over 23 years of experience leading successful SAP implementations, focusing on SAP Transportation Management, Business Network for Logistics, and SAP ERP Logistics modules (SD, MM, LE). Along with my XpertMinds team, we bring a unique and practical approach to projects, with a business-centric blueprinting process and a high-transparency agile methodology that means faster time-to-delivery with minimal re-work post go-live. I hold a Bachelor of Science as well as a master’s degree in business administration and am a frequent contributor and presenter for SAP publications and conferences.

Learn Transportation Planning in Our Upcoming Rheinwerk Course!

Get the most out of your SAP TM system! Unlock the intricacies of transportation planning logic, system behavior, configuration levers, and best practices for real-world logistics operations. True planning proficiency is within reach—and with this course, SAP TM mastermind Anton Karnaukhov hands you the keys. Click on the banner below to learn more and order your ticket.