Setting Up the Determination of Routes, Staging Areas, and Doors

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to set up the determination of routes, staging areas, and doors.

Route Determination

SAP EWM can work with the following routes in the delivery processing:

  • Route (SD):

    This is the route that can be entered in the SD sales order in SAP ERP, for example, or determined by ERP route determination. It influences transportation scheduling. For example, the system can determine from the route that goods are to be sent by rail to Boston. Therefore, during transportation scheduling, the system takes into account how far in advance loading space in the freight car must be reserved. The ERP route determination can also determine a route schedule.

  • Route (SCM):

    This is the route used in SCM/EWM route determination, for example, which is also transferred from an SAP CRM system. This route is sometimes called the Geo route. It is a sequence of legs that are connected by transshipment locations. This route represents a framework that comprises multiple trips.

Illustrates the route determination process in SAP ERP from sales order to delivery and EWM outbound request, highlighting when and how routes are defined or updated.

Copy ERP Route

In Customizing, you can set up how and which route data or route schedule is to be copied from the SAP ERP system into the SAP EWM system.

The following settings are possible:

  • Use Route (SCM):

    This setting is active in the standard system. The route may come from an SAP SCM system, for example. This route is usually filled if you are working with a SAP CRM system in which routes from an SAP SCM system are used (for example, by the availability check).

  • Use Route (SD) if Route (SCM) is initial:

    An SD route that may exist in the document is only used if the route (SCM-EWM) is not filled at the same time.

  • Use Route (SD) if Route (SD) and Route Schedule are filled:

    An SD route that may exist in the document is only used if the SD route and route schedule are transferred from the SAP ERP system.

  • Use Route (SD):

    The SD route is copied.

Depending on the settings, the Origin of Route Master Data indicator is also set in the delivery. Note that, if neither a route (SCM) or a route (SD) exist in the document, the indicator is left blank, which means Route and Departure Calendar from SCM.

Route Determination in EWM

Route determination in SAP EWM is based on the SAP SCM routing guide. If activated, it runs automatically in the background.

In order to use the route determination you need to activate the SCM Routing Guide in Customizing. The detailed path for the activation depends on your system:

  • Up to EWM 9.5 choose: SCM Extended Warehouse Management → SCM Basis → Routing Guide → General Settings for Route Determination.
  • In a SAP S/4HANA-based EWM choose: SCM Extended Warehouse Management → SCM Basis → Routing Guide → General Setting for Route Determination.

    Note

    While the route determination was always available in SAP S/4HANA based EWM with a decentral deployment, for embedded EWM the route determination became only available with SAP S/4HANA 2022.

If the screen comes up empty, you first have to choose New Entries. Then select the checkbox for Activate RG.

You activate the route determination for the warehouse in customizing under SCM Extended Warehouse Management → Extended Warehouse Management → Goods Issue Process → Outbound Delivery → Route determination → Activate or Deactivate Route Determination. Here, you can set up route determination for certain combinations of warehouse number, document type, and document category. If a route originates from SAP ERP, you can specify that a route determination in SAP EWM shall not happen.

Route Determination Master Data

The route determination in EWM is based on different master data and very different routes then the SD route determination.

  • Locations:

    To use the route determination in EWM, you need locations. For all other purposes EWM only needs business partners, but the SCM based route determination can not work with these.

    When CIF is used to transfer master data from the ERP system to SAP EWM, you can choose to create the following:

    • Only business partner
    • Only locations
    • Business partners and locations

    Therefore, when route determination is required, you would choose the last option.

    When using IDocs or services for the master data transfer, only business partners can be created. For creating locations for these business partners in the SAP S/4HANA-based decentralized EWM, you use the report, /SAPAPO/CREATE_LOCATIONS.

    The location for the warehouse, as start of the route, depends on whether you use a supply chain unit (SCU) for the warehouse which originates from a location (which would be the case when you used CIF to transfer the plant as location), or created the SCU manually (which has to be done when you have more then one warehouses at one plant or when using SAP S/4HANA based decentralized EWM). For the manually created SCU you can create a location by adding the Business AttributePLOC - Planning Location to the SCU.

  • Routes:

    A route is a sequence of legs. A leg is assigned uniquely to a route and a leg is a sequence of stops. Each stop is a location or a zone (see next item). A leg has one means of transport.

    You can restrict the validity of a route by specifying the following:

    • A validity period
    • Permitted shipping conditions
    • Permitted transportation groups
    • Weight, volume, and dimension limits
  • Zones:

    As in most cases, you do not want to create a route from a warehouse to each individual customer, you can use zones to combine the locations for these customers. You can define the following types of zones:

    • Direct zones:

      A direct zone has one or more directly assigned locations. When you use the report /SAPAPO/CREATE_LOCATIONS to create locations for business partners, the report also creates direct zones for the transportation zone of the business partner. In case of the same transportation zone for several business partners, these all get assigned to the same direct zone.

    • Postal code zone:

      You assign a number of postal code intervals to a postal code zone. The postal code zone then contains all the locations that lie in at least one of these postal code intervals.

    • Region zone:

      You assign countries and optionally regions to a region zone. The region zone contains all locations that lie in one of the selected countries and in at least one of the regions, if you have assigned regions.

    It is also possible to have mixed zone from locations, postal code intervals, and regions.

Staging Areas and Doors

Staging areas are used for the interim storage of goods in the warehouse. They are located in close proximity to the doors assigned to them.

You can define staging areas for different purposes and even simultaneously for multiple purposes:

  • Goods receipt

    The interim storage of unloaded goods until they are put away.

  • Goods issue

    The interim storage of picked goods until they are loaded.

Doors are locations in the warehouse where the goods arrive at or leave the warehouse. The door is an organizational unit that you assign to the warehouse number. Vehicles and their TUs drive up to the doors of a warehouse to load or unload goods there. The doors are in close proximity to the relevant staging areas.

You can assign the following directions to a door:

  • Inbound

  • Outbound

  • Inbound and outbound

Warehouse staging areas are organized into groups, each linked to specific doors for loading and unloading, illustrating efficient material flow and logistics.

Structure

  • Staging Area:

    A staging area is a section in a storage type with the storage type role D - Staging Area Group. A staging bay is a bin in to such a section. Besides the special storage type role, for each storage section you have to define the possible activity directions - inbound, outbound, or both.

  • Door:

    A door has a Loading Direction (Inbound, Outbound, or Inbound and Outbound), which is used to control the movements. You can assign each door to a storage bin in a storage type with the storage type role F - Doors. You can also assign doors to yard bins for the use in Yard Management.

Staging Area and Door Determination

The system can determine the following values by using determination rules:

  • Staging area groups:

    A staging area group is a storage type with the role D.

  • Staging area:

    A staging area is a section in a storage type which has the role staging area group.

  • Staging bays:

    A staging bay is a bin in a staging area.

  • Doors

Staging area and door determination runs automatically in the background when you create or change a delivery (outbound delivery order or inbound delivery) in SAP EWM. In the outbound delivery process, it runs after route determination since the route influences the determination of staging areas and doors.

Note

The automatic or manual assignment of TUs to staging bays in the shipping cockpit is only relevant if the determination is not done in the delivery item.

Determine Staging Areas and Doors

You must define determination rules to allow the system to perform staging area and door determination in the background. In addition, you must specify which values the system is to compare with the values in the delivery.

The values used for the determination depend on the direction of the process:

  • Inbound delivery process:

    • Warehouse process type

    • Staging area/door determination group

    • Ship-from

  • Outbound delivery process:

    • Route

    • Departure calendar

    • Staging area/door determination group

    • Sequence numbers (coming from the SCM route)

    • Ship-to

When you use the integration with transportation planning, you can also use the following information from the shipment to determine staging areas and doors:

  • Carrier

  • Means of transport

  • Handling unit (HU) type of packaging material

Learning

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