Process-oriented storage control is used to map complex putaways or stock removals. In addition to the basic process of receiving a product quantity into the warehouse and putting it away in a storage bin or taking a product out of the bin and dispatching it, often warehouses have additional processing requirements based on the nature of the products being managed.
It may be required to go through several process steps during the goods receipt or goods issue process. You combine all these individual storage process steps into one storage process. You can also trace the status of the individual process steps.
Inbound process steps include unloading, counting, deconsolidation, quality inspection, value added services (VAS), and putaway. Outbound process steps include picking, packing, VAS, staging, and loading. Process-oriented storage control is also possible for internal processes.
Process-oriented storage control only works with handling units.
Process-Oriented Putaway Process
The following figure shows a process-oriented putaway process:
The process executes as follows:
The transportation unit arrives at the warehouse door (St. Type: 9030, Bin: Door1).
A task is created to move the HUs from the door to the goods receipt staging area (St. Type: 9010, Bin: GR-ZONE). Either with the creation or the confirmation of this task, the system creates warehouse tasks for products inside the HU for the final destination bins. In case there is only one product inside the HU, this warehouse task would be immediately active and the following steps would not be required.
There are multiple products in the HU, so the system generates a task to send the HU to the deconsolidation work center (St. Type: 8010).
In the deconsolidation work center, the products are repacked into separate HUs.
The system activates the previously created tasks to move the deconsolidation products to their final putaway bin.
Determination of Deconsolidation
In the example, the system determined that deconsolidation was required based on the fact that the consolidation group determined from the putaway location for each product was different. The following figure shows this scenario:
In this figure, for each material, the system determines a putaway strategy that determines the putaway bin location (St. Type-Section-Bin). The putaway location determines the activity area (bins are assigned to activity areas). A deconsolidation group is assigned to each activity area. If they are different for products in the same HU, the HU must go to deconsolidation.
Configuration Settings
Based on different processing requirements of the products in your warehouse, you define the process-oriented storage control as part of the configuration settings.
Generally, the approach to configuring process-oriented storage control is to first define the warehouse process steps that are applied to your products. You define External Process Steps, which are connected to an Internal Process Step (defined by SAP). The internal process steps cannot be altered or supplemented with your own. The following figure illustrates the external to internal process step assignment:
The storage process is a combination of individual external storage process steps, through which the product passes as part of its complex goods receipt or goods issue process. Storage processes are configured for each warehouse. You can configure a storage process in Customizing for SCM Extended Warehouse Management, in Extended Warehouse Management → Cross-Process Settings → Warehouse Task → Define Process-Oriented Storage Control.
You can assign process steps to a storage process only in a specific sequence.
For the putaway process, this is as follows (the list shows the internal process steps):
- Unload
- Count
- Deconsolidation
- Quality inspection
- Value-added service (VAS)
- Putaway
For the stock removal process, this is as follows:
- Remove from stock
- Value-added services (VAS)
- Pack
- Stage
- Load
Each storage process step represents a potential movement in the warehouse. The SAP EWM system uses logic related to the internal processes to determine whether a warehouse task will be or can be created.
The Auto WT setting on the process step determines whether the subsequent warehouse task will be created or not. If the Auto WT setting is not made, the warehouse task will have to be created manually.
Note
The Prod/HU WT setting controls when during a putaway process the product warehouse task (which is the final process step during putaway) are to be created. In a picking process the first process step is always a product warehouse task, so it is not necessary to set this flag. The other process steps in the process use HU warehouse tasks.
The system uses the time-related entries in the process step to compute an estimate of the total processing time in Labor Management planning.
The external storage process step is also used to determine the destination location in the warehouse task generated by the step. You can either directly maintain a destination storage bin or use a rule-based determination. You can also enter a warehouse process type for the external step, which is used to create the corresponding WT.
Storage Process Determination
The storage process is determined depending on the direction of the warehouse request. For inbound movements, the storage process comes directly from the warehouse process type determined in the warehouse request. For outbound delivery orders, the storage process is part of the warehouse order creation rule (which is explained in a separate unit).
