Creating Staging Areas and Work Centers

Staging areas are used for the interim storage of goods in the warehouse. They are generally located in close proximity to the doors assigned to them. Here, the products are stored after unloading or before loading and where usually the goods receipt or goods issue posting is done ("Usually "means that the GR or GI posting can also happen on other places, for example in a bin assigned to a door on in the truck which is in the yard).

You can define a staging area to be for goods receipt (GR), goods issue (GI), or both. Note the following:

A staging area is represented in the warehouse structure as a storage section in a storage type with a storage type role of D - Staging Area Group. You can have a 1:1 relationship or 1:N (means several storage sections in one storage type). You can also divide each staging area into one or more storage bins. You need multiple storage bins, for example, if you want to define a loading sequence.

In an additional Customizing activity, you "define" the staging area by assigning if the storage section is used for:

• Goods receipt: interim storage of unloaded goods until they are put away

• Goods issue: interim storage of picked goods until they are loaded

• Goods receipt and goods issue

A work center is a physical unit in the warehouse in which warehouse activities such as packing, deconsolidation, or weighing are performed. Structurally, the work center is assigned to a storage type and to a storage bin in this storage type. The storage type for the work center must have a storage type role of Work Center (E), Pick Point (B), Identification and Pick Point (C), or Work center in staging area (I). You can configure more than one work center for each storage type in the system. You can give several work centers the same inbound and/or outbound section. To create a work center, you must configure Customizing and master data settings in the SAP EWM system beyond the creation of the storage type that represents the work center.

Work Center Structure

The following figure shows you an example of how you could structure a work center storage type:

Note the following points:

• Work center PAC1 represents a work center that has no inbound section and no outbound section.

• Work centers PAC2 and PAC3 represent work centers that have an inbound section but no outbound section.

• Work centers PAC4 and PAC5 represent work centers that have an inbound section and an outbound section.

An inbound section is used if there is more then one possible work center, but the specific work center can not be determined directly. This is usually the case, as a work center has no capacity. That means you can not control how much work is sent to a work center. The work centers share an inbound section, and the system sends the products or HUs into the bin of this inbound section. You then move the HU from the inbound section to the work center using drag and drop at the work center.

Note

If you use the RF functions for work centers (which are not available for all work center functions in EWM, but for example for deconsolidation and packing), an inbound and outbound section is not used. A user still logs in at the work center, but simply selects the HU and then processes it, even if it is not at the bin connected to the work center.

The outbound section is helpful when HUs have been processed, but have not been moved to the next storage type. By moving them to the bin in the outbound section, you know that they are not relevant for the work center anymore.