Setting Up Availability Groups for Inventory Management (IM)

SAP EWM does not maintain the SAP ERP plant and storage location in the SAP EWM warehouse quant data. Instead, it uses the SAP EWM availability group to determine an SAP EWM stock type. In SAP EWM Customizing, there is a table that maps the SAP ERP plant, storage location, and logical system number to an availability group. The availability group together with the ERP stock-type is the link between stock types in SAP EWM and the SAP ERP plant and storage location stock. The following figure illustrates the connection between the SAP ERP IM interface and SAP EWM in the goods receipt process:

In the proposed standard EWM settings, the system works with two storage locations in SAP ERP and two corresponding availability groups. The storage location Received on Dock (ROD) shows the situation when the material has arrived, but is still in the inbound processing. After the material has reached the final bin or bins in the warehouse, SAP EWM triggers a posting change to the storage locations Available for Sale (AFS), to show that the inbound process has been completed.

Availability Group Configuration

To establish the availability group interface in SAP EWM and SAP ERP, the system uses Customizing tables. The following figure illustrates the basic settings:

The stock information (for example in the inbound delivery) is always a combination of the following:

• Plant
• Storage location
• Non-location-dependent stock type

The non-location-dependent stock types correspond to the stock types in ERP.

The combination of plant, storage location, logical system, and warehouse number is assigned to an availability group. The combination of availability group and non-location-dependent stock type is assigned to an EWM stock type.

Note

Additionally there is a column Stock Type Role. The stock type role describes additional stock scenarios. Possible entries are as follows:

• Normal Stock
• Customs Blocked Stock
• Scrapping Stock

With EWM in SAP S/4HANA (embedded or decentralized), improvements for a better visibility of the plant and storage location were made:

• The default text of stock types is defined in the LIME (Logistics Inventory Management Engine). But you can overwrite this text for each warehouse number in the table where the assignment to availability group and non-location-dependent stock type is done.
• The availability group used to be a 4 character field only and was usually named 0001 or 0002. Now the field is longer, so you can use a combination of "plant/storage location" (like SPCW/AF00).

Stock in the warehouse is always assigned to two business partners (which can be the same), the party entitled to dispose and the owner.

The party entitled to dispose is the organization that is entitled to dispose of stock. Usually, this is the plant in which the stocks are planned. The business partner (BP) for this organization can come from different places (only one entry is required):

• ID type CRM011 in the BP. The identification number points to the plant, the responsible institution shows the logical system name of the source system (the ERP system in a decentral EWM deployment).

  This was the original connection used in SCM based EWM, but not recommended anymore.

• The plant in the general data of the BP with the BP role FLVN01 Supplier.

  This field corresponds to the plant assignment field in the additional purchasing data of the classic vendor master record.

• The customizing tableAssign Business Partners to Plant (path: SCM Extended Warehouse Management → Extended Warehouse Management → Interfaces → ERP Integration → General Settings → Assign Business Partners to Plant.

  In this table you can not only enter the BP to be used as Disposal Party, but also which BPs are to be used as Ship-from and Ship-to (which can be the same BP, but also two different ones). These two assignments are used for a kit-to-stock scenario.

The owner is the organization that owns the stock. Usually this is a plant. For vendor consignment stock, the vendor (which is known from the inbound delivery) is the owner and the plant is the party entitled to dispose of the stock.

The complete picture of organizational integration looks as it does in the following picture.