The purpose of the ProcessShipmentUnit is to enable an application to provide a ShipmentUnit information from another business application module in order for that module to perform the task at hand..

The ProcessShipmentUnit is typically published from the business application that is is requesting that the master or owner of the ShipmentUnit information to process the contained update. This may also occur across enterprises.

The respons to the ProcessShipmentUnit is the AcknowledgeShipmentUnit to indicate success or failure. If the receiving system needs to make changes to the ShipmentUnit then the ChangeShipmentUnit can be used a coresponding RespondShipmentUnit accepts the changes or indicates additional changes.