SAP Extended Warehouse Management

The goods receipt in EWM begins either with an advised delivery or with an expected goods receipt based on a purchase order. In each case, however, an inbound delivery is created in EWM, which serves as the basis for goods receipt processing in EWM.

The process for goods receipt processing can be customized in EWM according to your requirements. Several different goods receipt processes are also possible, e.g. depending on the supplier or material.

One type of goods receipt processing is described below:

Goods receipt posting

With the goods receipt posting, you confirm the physical arrival of the goods in your warehouse.

Unloading

During unloading, you move the delivered pallets from the truck to your goods receipt area.

Deconsolidation

During deconsolidation, you can repack the delivered pallets onto suitable storage pallets, for example, so that the goods are suitable for your individual warehouse.

Quality inspection

In the quality inspection step, you check the quality of the delivered goods. The quality check can be carried out in different ways.

Putaway

In the putaway step, the system uses a configurable putaway strategy to determine the most suitable storage location for the material for final putaway. The goods receipt process is then completed and the goods are available for retrieval.Der Wareneingang im EWM beginnt entweder mit einer avisierten Lieferung oder mit einem erwarteten Wareneingang auf Basis einer Bestellung. In Jedem Fall aber wird im EWM eine Anlieferung angelegt, die als Basis für die Wareneingangsbearbeitung im EWM dient. 

The goods issue process in EWM begins with an outbound delivery that is created either in the connected ERP or S/4HANA system, on the basis of a sales order or as an unplanned withdrawal, e.g. to a cost center, or directly in EWM (direct outbound delivery).

Different, freely configurable goods issue processes can be found in EWM based on the outbound deliveries.

An example of a goods issue process is described below.

Transportation planning

You have the option of carrying out transportation planning in EWM. This allows you to plan which deliveries are to be dispatched together and when they are to be dispatched. However, transportation planning can also be carried out in a connected transportation planning system or in ERP or S/4HANA and transferred to EWM.

Wave management

You can combine the picking of several outbound deliveries into so-called waves. This makes it possible to bundle similar outbound delivery items and carry out workload planning. When the waves are released, the warehouse tasks for picking are created and bundled into work packages.

Picking

During picking, the materials requested for delivery are picked from the warehouse for dispatch. Picking can be carried out in different ways. Further information on this can be found in the Picking section.

Packing

In this process step, you pack the picked goods in suitable shipping containers and print the shipping documents that you need to attach to the package. The documents can be printed directly from EWM.

Staging

In the staging step, the shipping containers and pallets are prepared for loading in the staging zone. The staging zone is usually an area in front of a gate. The correct staging zone is determined via the process or via the gate assignment of the transport unit.

Loading and goods issue

Once the goods have been prepared and staged for shipping, the shipping containers and pallets can be loaded. After loading, the goods issue process is completed with the goods issue posting for EWM and the goods are posted from stock in the system.

With SAP EWM, you can transparently map the entire production supply process from material requisition, staging, material consumption, clearing of the production supply area to goods receipt processing of the manufactured material.

There are two different technologies for material staging: staging via deliveries and staging via production material requirements.

With delivery-based staging, you create an outbound delivery for the components of your production order. Based on the delivery, the materials are picked, staged and booked out of the warehouse system stock with the goods issue posting. It is possible to consume the stock in the system directly against the production order or to transfer the stock to a non-EWM-managed storage location and then consume it directly in the connected ERP or production system.

When staging via the production material requisition (PMA), a PMA document is generated in EWM on the basis of the production order, on the basis of which the staging and material consumption is controlled. The advantage of using the PMA document for production supply is that partial requests for components can also be made, e.g. for a procedure, and components can be requested again, e.g. in the event of unplanned excess consumption.

The components can be provided in three different ways with the PMA document:

Order-specific

With order-specific staging, you only request the components for one production order. The order-specific staged stock can also only be used for one production order.

Cross-order

With cross-order staging, you can stage a material that is required for several production orders. The staged material has no direct document reference and can therefore be used for all production orders.

No provisioning

With this provisioning method, there is no physical provisioning. The stock for the required components is always stored in sufficient quantities in a storage location in production and is consumed directly from there. To ensure sufficient stock, you can use an automated replenishment process or a Kanban process, for example.

You can define the type of provision for each component in a PMA document. This makes it possible to combine the staging methods.

All processes that are required exclusively for the internal operation of a warehouse are summarized under the generic term internal processes. The most important internal processes in SAP EWM are briefly explained below.

Replenishment

With the replenishment process, you ensure that materials are always available in sufficient quantities in the required storage bin by replenishing them from your reserve area.

In EWM, a distinction is made between planned and unplanned replenishment. With planned replenishment, for example, you can always ensure that the materials are stored in sufficient quantities in your quickly accessible storage bins before starting picking for outbound deliveries and production orders. You can carry out planned replenishment based on the workload planned in the system or the stock situation, for example. Unplanned replenishment is always triggered by the system if the stock of a material on a shelf or in a storage bin falls below a definable threshold value when it is removed from storage.

Inventory

SAP EWM offers you a transparent way of planning and executing the inventory of your stock. You can choose between storage bin-based and product-based stocktaking. EWM also offers various inventory procedures such as stock-in and stock-out inventory (low stock inventory), ad hoc inventory, cycle counting and an interface for inventory sampling. You can combine the inventory procedures as you wish in order to select the most suitable solution for you. The inventory process can be fully integrated into the radio data link or paper-based.

Scrapping

With EWM, you can map your scrapping processes in the warehouse. Whether breakage or planned activities, such as checking the shelf life of your stock. You can freely define the scrapping process, regardless of whether you want to book out the stock directly in the storage bin or move it to a scrapping zone first.

With EWM, you can map additional logistics services (value-added services), i.e. value-adding activities in your warehouse. Such value-adding activities can be simple assembly work, the separation and packing of articles or the creation of kits from several components to form a header product.

EWM provides a separate document for such activities, which contains the work instructions and which you can use to post the material transfers or consumption of auxiliary products such as packaging, oils, etc.

Additional logistics services can be integrated into the goods receipt and goods issue process in EWM or carried out as an independent process.

Warehouse management in SAP EWM is a powerful tool for controlling processes and goods movements in your warehouse. With process-oriented and layout-oriented warehouse control, SAP offers you two different but combinable options for process definition.

Process-oriented storage control

With process-oriented storage control, processes are defined with individual process steps. Each process step can be assigned its own target location. When a process step is completed, the storage tasks for the target bin of the next process step can be created automatically.

Layout-oriented storage control

Layout-oriented storage control is used to map the physical conditions of your warehouse, e.g. identification and picking points, transfer areas or other broken transports. If a sink B can only be reached from a source A via a transfer point C, the transport can be mapped as three individual transports A - C - B.

• Single-order picking
• Multi-Order Picking
• Combined Picking
• Pick and pack
• Pick and pass
• 2-stage picking

• Resource management
• Task management using queues

Batch management in SAP EWM enables the traceability of stock across the entire intralogistics process chain.

The batch obligation and the characteristics of the batch features are master data that are transferred from SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA to EWM.

SAP EWM supports catch weight for products that you need to manage in different units of measure, e.g. pieces and kilograms.

This is a fundamental requirement, particularly in the food sector and food retail and other areas where items are managed logistically in pieces but sold to customers in units of weight.

A handling unit is a load carrier (e.g. pallet) with the goods it contains. SAP EWM offers you the option of flexibly managing single or multi-level handling units and the stocks packed in them. Handling units have a unique identification and - if necessary - further identifications. The identification can be assigned externally (e.g. for permanently labeled containers) or internally and facilitates, among other things, the handling of logistics processes using mobile data applications.

Handling units in EWM do not require handling unit management to be activated in ERP or SAP S/4HANA for the respective storage location.