Freight Planner helps you decide which shipment method to use for purchase orders and how to distribute products between air and ocean freight. It analyzes your inventory needs and automatically recommends the optimal split to minimize costs while preventing stockouts.
How Freight Planner works
There are two main freight types:
Air Freight: Faster and more expensive
Ocean Freight: Slower and more affordable
Freight Planner determines which products need urgent delivery (air freight) versus which can arrive later (ocean freight) based on:
Forecasted stockout dates for each product
Financial impact of potential stockouts
Lead time differences between freight methods
💡 The goal: Ship urgent items via air to prevent stockouts, while sending items with healthy inventory via ocean to save on freight costs.
Using Freight Planner
Step 1: Access Freight Planner
Navigate to any Purchase Order in Draft or Approved status
Click the Calculate freight cost button in the right side panel
Step 2: Configure Lead Times
When Freight Planner opens, enter three lead time values:
Manufacturing Lead Time
How many days your supplier needs to prepare the order for shipment
Example: 15 days
Air Freight Lead Time
Transit time once the order is ready to ship via air
Example: 5 days
Ocean Freight Lead Time
Transit time once the order is ready to ship via ocean
Example: 30 days
A visual timeline displays the manufacturing period and expected arrival dates for both freight methods based on PO order date.
Step 3: Calculate Optimized Distribution
Click the Calculate button to generate recommendations.
Freight Planner analyzes each product and displays the Optimized Freight Distribution table:
Column | What it shows |
Product | Product name with variant details |
Total Ordered Qty | Total quantity you're ordering in this purchase order |
Air Qty | Recommended quantity for urgent air shipment |
Ocean Qty | Recommended quantity for cost-effective ocean shipment |
Projected Savings | Estimated cost savings from the optimized split |
How the algorithm works: Products at risk of stockouts are prioritized for air freight, while products with sufficient inventory can arrive later via ocean freight, maximizing your savings.
Step 4: Take Action
After reviewing the optimization results, you have two options:
Option A: Create Split Shipments Automatically
Click the Create Shipments button to automatically split your PO into separate air and ocean freight purchase orders
Option B: Download and Handle Manually
Download the optimization results
Communicate the split to your supplier directly without creating separate POs in Fabrikatör
When to use Freight Planner
Freight Planner is most valuable when:
You're ordering large quantities with mixed urgency levels
Some products are at risk of stockouts while others have healthy inventory
You want to balance delivery speed with freight costs
You need to optimize cash flow by avoiding rush shipping for all items
Related articles
How to Create Split Shipments from Freight Planner - Step-by-step guide to automatically split POs based on optimization
Understanding Split Purchase Orders - Learn about other ways to split POs