Performance features of the GPC module
‘Location master and Distance database’
(Short description)

1. General
Locations and distances can be saved using this Add-In-Module for SAP R/3-Systems. Besides city names the system provides the possibility to maintain rail stations, ports (sea and inland water) and airports. This information is used to process an automatic address check, for the determination of distances for shipment stages and legs and beyond that in other processes (e. g. freight calculation).

2. Master data maintenance
The module contains the following transactions for the location data administration: Display, create, change (including a copy function), select options, mass maintenance and archiving programs for the entire database. In addition there are inquiry and analyzing tools as well as administration tools to enable a manual maintenance of distances.

2.1 Location master
The location master is assigned to the following SD/MM master data objects:
- Customers
- Vendors
- Shipping points
- Connection points
- Shipment stages
Basically this can be done manually using special transactions. Beyond that GPC delivers programs for an automatic assignment procedure and loading programs for external databases. GPC is able to provide the following databases:
- Germany/Europe
  This database contains approximately 410,000 locations. A detailed location list per
  country is available in the excel file ‘Location_file_data.xls’.
- USA
  This database contains all US locations, approximately 42,000, based ona 5-digit
  zip-code. The location master is not required for a distance determination in the US.

2.2 Distance databases
Comparable to the location master there are tools to load external databases and transactions for the manual creation of customer specific distance databases using specific mater file IDs.
GPC is able to deliver the following external databases:
- Germany/Europe
  This database contains more than 26 million distances for Germany and more than 49
  million distance records for Europe. More detailed information is available in the excel sheet
  ‘Location_file_data.xls’.
  Meanwhile these databases are as well established in the industry as in the transportation
  organizations replacing the former GFT distance database.
- USA
  Distance databases, based on 5-digit zip-codes, independent of a location master and/or
  programs which access external distance determination tools in realtime (ALK and Rand
  McNally)
- Canada
  Distance databases, based on alpha numeric zip-codes


3. Processing
3.1 Distance determination
If a distance is required during a program sequence (stage determination, freight calculation, ...) which is not yet available in the system, the automatic determination of distances is automatically called. Using the customizing possibilities allows to access different databases – also external ones – to determine the best result within the search process. The result of the distance determination is provided in the appropriate fields and – if necessary – saved. If required the determined distances can be compared to minimum and/or maximum distances. Beyond that the system provides an online inquiry transaction to determine distances manually.

3.2 Address check
Addresses which are maintained within the central SAP address dialogue can be checked by customizing tables by country, by transaction code or by table/view name. This check uses the location master. If this check is activated the user can search locations generically with parts of the location name in the location master, which means an address can be entered generically and is completed by the system automatically.

Userexits have been made available at certain points in the programs where customer specific functions are required but not available in the standard process.