SAP Extended Warehouse Management

Goods receipt in EWM begins either with a notified delivery or with an expected goods receipt based on a purchase order. In any 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 may be designed individually in EWM according to your needs. Several different goods receipts processes are also possible, e.g. depending on the supplier or material.

One version of goods receipt processing is described below:

Goods receipt posting

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

Unloading

When unloading, you move the delivered pallets from the truck to your goods receiving area. 

Deconsolidation

With deconsolidation, you can repack the delivered pallets, for example, with only one material on suitable storage pallets 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 inspection may be conducted in different ways. 

Putaway

During putaway, the system uses a configurable storage strategy to determine the most suitable storage location for material for final storage. The goods receipt is then completed and the goods are available for picking.

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

Based on the deliveries, different, freely configurable goods issue processes can be found in EWM.

One example for a goods issues process is described below. 

Transportation planning

You have the possibility to execute transportation planning in EWM. In this case you plan which deliveries should be sent together and when they will be sent. However, transport planning may also be executed in a connected transport planning system or in ERP or S/4HANA and be transmitted to EWM.

Wave Management

You can group the picking of several outbound deliveries in so-called waves. This allows to bundle similar delivery items and execute workload planning. When the waves are released, the warehouse tasks for picking are created and bundled into work packages.

Picking

During order picking, the materials requested for delivery are taken from the warehouse for shipping. The picking may be conducted in different ways. Further information can be found in the section Picking.

Packaging

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

Staging

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

Loading and goods issue

After the goods have been provided and prepared 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 removed from the system's stock.

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

A distinction is made between two technologies for material supply: staging via deliveries and staging via production material requirements.

With delivery-based production supply, you create an outbound delivery for the components of your production order. Based on the delivery, the materials are picked, provided and booked out of the warehouse's system inventory with the consumption posting. It is possible to post consumption of the stock for the production order directly in EWM 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 request (PMR), a PMR document is generated in EWM based on the production order, on the basis of which the staging and material consumption are controlled. The advantage of using the PMR receipt for production supply is that partial requests for components, e.g. operation-wise, as well as unplanned consumption postings are possible.

With the PMR document, the components may be provided in three different ways:

Order-specific staging

With order-specific provision, you request the components for one particular production order. The order-specific stock may only be used for this one production order.

Cross-order staging

With cross-order staging, you may supply the production with material that is required for several production orders. The material provided has no direct reference to documents and can therefore be used for all production orders.

No staging

There is no physical staging with this staging method. The stock for the required components is always stored in sufficient quantities in a storage location in production and is consumed directly from there. You may use an automated replenishment process or a Kanban process to ensure sufficient stocks.

You may define the staging method for each component in a PMR document. This allows the combination of staging methods.

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

Replenishment

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

When it comes to replenishment, a distinction is made between planned and unplanned replenishment in EWM. With planned replenishment, you can, for example, always ensure that the materials are stored in sufficient quantities in your quickly accessible storage locations before the start of picking for deliveries and production orders. You may carry out the planned replenishment e.g. based on the workload planned in the system or the stock situation. The system triggers unplanned replenishment if the stock of a material on a shelf or in a storage bin falls below a definable threshold during removal.

Physical inventory

SAP EWM offers you a transparent option for planning and executing the physical inventory of your warehouse stock. You can choose between the storage bin-related and the product-related inventory. EWM also offers different stocktaking procedures such as storage and retrieval stocktaking (low-stock check), ad-hoc inventory, cycle counting method and an interface for inventory sampling. You may combine the inventory procedures at your discretion in order to choose the most suitable solution for you. The physical inventory may be executed fully integrated on a mobile device or on paper.

Scrapping

EWM supports you in the execution of scrapping processes in the warehouse. Regardless of whether it is breakage or during planned activities, such as checking the shelf life of your stocks. You may freely define the scrapping process, regardless of whether you want to post the goods issue directly from the storage bin or move the stock to a scrapping zone first.

With EWM, you may execute value-added services in your warehouse. Such VAS activities can be simple assembly work, the deconsolidation out and re-packing of articles or the creation of kits and bundles from several components to form a main product.

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

Value-added services in EWM may be integrated in the goods receipt or goods issue process or executed as a separate, stand-alone process.

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

Process-oriented storage control

With process-oriented storage control, processes are defined via individual process steps. Each process step may have its own target location. Upon completion of a process step, the warehouse tasks may be automatically created for the target location of the next process step. 

Layout-oriented storage control

The layout-oriented storage control is used to map the physical conditions of your warehouse, e.g. identification and picking points, transfer areas or otherwise combined transports. If a destination B may 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-step picking

• Resource management
• Task management via queues

Batch management in SAP EWM enables stocks to be traced across the entire intralogistics process chain.

The batch management requirement and the batch characteristics are master data that is transferred from SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA to EWM.

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

This is a basic requirement in the food sector and food retailing and other areas in which items are logistically managed in pieces, but are sold to customers in weight units.

A Handling Unit is a load carrier (e.g. pallet) with the goods on it. 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 - if necessary – additional identifications. The identification may be assigned externally (e.g. for permanently labeled containers) or internally and, among other things, facilitates the handling of logistical processes through mobile data applications.

Handling units in EWM do not require activation of Handling Unit Management in ERP or SAP S/4HANA for the respective storage location.