Creating Structural Elements in the Warehouse

A storage type is a four-character code that can represent a variety of physical and logical areas within and outside the physical warehouse. The storage type is a physical or logical subdivision of a warehouse complex, which is characterized by its warehouse technologies, space required, organizational form, or function. A storage type consists of one or more storage sections and bins. The use of the storage type within the warehouse is indicated by the role code in storage type Customizing. The storage type can be used in the following roles:

• Standard storage type:

  A standard storage type represents a physical area in the warehouse where products are stored according to a set of spatial and material handling strategies. SAP has preconfigured a number of standard storage types for different putaway rules.

• Identification point (ID):

  In the ID role, a storage type can be used to represent an area within a warehouse where goods are labeled, identified, or checked during a goods receipt process. ID points are commonly used with automated storage/retrieval systems.

• Pick point:

  A pick point is a physical area within the warehouse where goods are checked, labeled, inspected, or packed during a goods issue process.

• Identification and pick point:

  A storage type with the identification and pick point role represents an area within a warehouse where both ID and pick point processing takes place.

• Staging area group:

  In this role, a storage type represents one or more staging areas in the warehouse. In staging areas you temporary keep products after you have unloaded a truck or before you load a truck.

• Work center:

  A storage type with the Work Center role represents a physical area within the warehouse where certain processes take place such as deconsolidation, inspection, packing, or value-added-service processing.

• Doors:

  This role is used to represent one or more doors in a certain physical location within a warehouse, for example, the doors on the west side of the warehouse.

• Yard:

  In this role, a storage type represents a yard adjacent to the warehouse.

• Automatic Storage Retrieval (Material flow control):

  A storage type with a material flow control role represents an area or system using storage/retrieval automation, such as a conveyor system.

• Work center in staging areas group:

  This role is assigned to a storage type to represent a work center within a material staging area. This is for example used in the kit-to-stock process.

• Automatic warehouse (controlled by MFS):

  The automatic warehouse role is used for automatic high rack storage areas controlled through EWM-MFS. The material flow system (MFS) allows you to connect an automatic warehouse to SAP EWM without the need for an additional warehouse control unit.

• Production supply:

  The production supply role represents storage bins that are assigned to a production supply area (PSA), and used for material staging.

The control indicators in the storage type Customizing determine the placement, storage, and removal procedures of product quantities in the storage type.

Warehouse Layout Example

In SAP EWM, a storage section is an organizational subdivision of a storage type that is represented by a four-character code. Storage sections contain storage bins that have similar attributes for putaway, such as heavy parts, bulky parts, hazardous materials, fast-moving items, or slow-moving items.

You can use storage sections during the determination of the bin for putaway. The definition of storage sections in a standard storage type is only required if you plan to use the storage section search in the storage type.

Additionally storage sections are also used in SAP EWM to structure a storage type with roles like Work Center or Yard. Storage sections are required for storage types with the Staging Area Group role. The actual staging area is always a storage section inside such a storage type.

In the warehouse, a quant refers to the contents of a storage bin. There are default criteria that the SAP EWM system uses in putaways and stock removals to determine the material quantity that forms a quant in a storage bin.

The default criteria are as follows:

• Material respectively product number

• Stock category

• Special stock assignment

• Plant and storage location which owns the stock

• Batch number (if batch managed)

• Handling unit (if stock is HU-managed in the bin)

The majority of the data in the list comes as information when an inbound delivery is created in SAP EWM. Some information like the batch or the handling unit can also be created during processing in SAP EWM. The stock category can be influenced and changed through quality management processes.

Addition to Existing Stock

When you allow addition to existing stock, a storage bin that contains a quant of a material can store further quantities of the same material if the remaining quant criteria match. The size of the quant increases and decreases by putaway and stock removal activities.

Note

The goods receipt date of a material quantity is managed at the quant level. If additions are made to the existing stock, there is only one goods receipt date. Which one prevails can be defined in the storage type settings. However, if you want to perform stock removals according to the first in first out (FIFO) principle, you need to prohibit additions to the existing stock.

The same limitation is true for the best-before date (when working without batches).

Addition to stock can be allowed in general in a storage type, but it can also be set to be controlled product specific (with a product putaway profile).

Mixed Storage

With mixed storage, you can store several materials or several batches of the same material in one storage bin. There are also settings to control the mix of quants inside a handling unit.

Various methods of capacity checks are available depending on the storage type and putaway control. These methods can ensure that the storage bins are not overloaded when additions are made to the existing stock or for mixed storage.