Outlining Warehouse Structures

A plant is a location where goods are produced (manufacturing plant) or stored (distribution center) and where services are provided. A plant is assigned to a company code, which is a Financial Accounting organizational unit. Storage locations are assigned to a plant and keep the stock in view of inventory management. Because of this, at least one storage location is necessary.

Having different storage locations in a plant allow you to:

• Differentiate between the various stocks of material in a plant
• Differentiate between the physical storage characteristics
• Classify the quantities of material in a plant to indicate their use (for example, available for sale) or perhaps their logical location (for example, at a third-party logistics provider)

Although SAP EWM is very different than SAP WM, both use a warehouse number to represent the physical warehouse in which materials are stored and managed. This warehouse number must be created in ERP customizing. In the case of the use as an SAP EWM warehouse, a substructure does not need to be configured for this warehouse in ERP. Instead, the ERP warehouse number is set up as SAP EWM relevant, and connected to a warehouse number that is defined in SAP EWM. In the ERP system, the warehouse number is a three-character field. However, in SAP EWM, it is a four-character field.

These organizational units and structures are generally the same in SAP S/4HANA, also when using embedded EWM.

The organizational and physical attributes of a warehouse complex are entered under the warehouse number in customizing. Examples of some attributes are:

• Weight unit of measure
• Volume unit of measure
• Time unit of measure

There are also various determination procedures, e. g. for palletization data and packaging specifications, that are assigned at the warehouse number level.

In general, the warehouse number usually corresponds to a physical building or distribution center. If your warehousing facilities are located in different cities or are physically separated by a long distance, it is appropriate to assign a separate warehouse number to each warehouse complex.

To each warehouse number a unique Supply Chain Unit (SCU) with the Business AttributeINV - Warehouse must be assigned. An SCU is a physical or organizational unit that is used within a logistics process, with one or more business attributes. The supply chain unit contains essential information, such as country, region, and time zone. The system uses the time zone of the SCU for the warehouse number when displaying all date and time fields.

Each warehouse number has a substructure that maps the spatial relationship in the warehouse complex in detail.

A storage type is characterized by:

• Warehouse technologies
• Space required
• Organizational form or function

The storage type is defined in customizing by a four-character code. Storage type controls the storage behavior of the assigned storage bins. The assignment to a storage type role allows the SAP EWM system to further control its usage.

Storage type roles and their purposes are outlined in this table.

Essential settings regarding putaway, stock removal or goods movement control is configured in the storage type customizing.

A storage section is assigned to storage bins that have similar attributes. This information is then used during the putaway process. The criteria for joining these bins (or the attributes of the bins) can be defined in any way, for example:

• Fast-moving items
• Slow-moving items
• Hazardous materials with certain characteristics
• Heavy parts
• Bulky parts

Although a using a storage section is optional for regular storage types, storage sections are needed in staging areas groups (used for goods receipt and goods issue).

As the address of a storage bin is frequently derived from a coordinate system, that address is called a bin coordinate. For example, the coordinate 01-02-03 would be a storage bin in aisle 1, stack 2, and level 3. Note that the bin coordinate assigned to a storage bin is unique within the warehouse.

Storage bin coordinates are set up in customizing and require these two steps to be used during the creation of a storage bin:

1. Define the bin coordinate structure or "coding" by assigning a unique placeholder to represent these components of the bin coordinates:
   • Aisle
   • Stack
   • Level
   • Bin subdivision
   • Bin depth
2. Use these placeholders to create structures/templates to generate the storage bin master data automatically.

You can use any combination of letters and numbers for storage bin coordinates. Ensure that you organize each part of the structure according to the coding defined for your warehouse (for aisle, stack, level, and so on).

Each storage bin must be assigned to a storage type and can be assigned to a storage section.

You can also define additional attributes for a storage bin such as:

• Storage bin type: Used to indicate the relative size of a bin and/or actual bin dimensions.
• Bin access type: Used to control how a bin is accessed by resources.
• RF verification field: Used in (radio frequency) RF scanning to verify that the correct bin is being accessed.
• Geo-coordinates of storage bin: Used by SAP EWM to compute distances between the bins in goods movements.
• Capacity checking attributes (max weight, volume, total capacity): Used to control the amount of product to be stored in a bin.
• Fire containment section: Used in product hazardous material reporting.

Warehouse activities, for example putaway, picking, and physical inventory, can be executed in activity areas. This allows the sequence of warehouse tasks to be optimized according to the assignment of storage bins to an activity area.

You create activity-dependent bin sortings within an activity area.

An activity area consists of one or more assigned storage bins. Depending on the activity, the same storage bin can be assigned to multiple activity areas. For each activity, the assigned bins are sorted per activity area.

For the sorting, you use information from the storage bin, such as, the aisle, the stack, or the level as sort criteria.

To optimize the picking or putaway process, storage bins are logically grouped using the activity area.

Picking or putaway can also be done in a bin which is not assigned to an activity area for the specified activity. But activity areas are very important instruments to control the workload of warehouse resources.

Activities and activity areas are defined in customizing. The sorting of the bins to the activity area is executed in the system directly (not in customizing).

The graphical warehouse layout shows a two-dimensional view of the inside of the warehouse. This includes the stock situation and information regarding storage bins, resources, and automatic storage retrieval.

To generate the graphical warehouse layout the master data of the storage bins is used. This requires that information on geographical coordinates (X, Y and Z) and the storage bin type are properly maintained within the storage bin. Without this information the storage bin cannot be displayed in the graphical warehouse layout. Fix structures, such as walls, offices, etc. are objects defined in EWM customizing.

Stock stored in a storage bin is called a quant. A quant represents the quantity of a specific product in a single storage bin, a resource, or a transportation unit.

If a batch-managed material is stored in a single storage bin, then the system counts each batch as a different quant.

During putaway, when you put a product into an empty bin in EWM, the system generates a quant in that storage bin. You can increase the quantity of a quant by adding to the existing stock. When you remove the quantity from storage, the system automatically deletes the quant.

A quant is not an organizational structure, nor is it master data, it actually describes the stock that is seen in a bin. In EWM the quant number is a technical GUID that cannot be seen anywhere (unlike to SAP ERP WM).

In the quant record, the system manages the data for the products in a quant. That data includes:

• Quant identification (assigned by the system)
• Product number
• Batch number
• Stock type
• Stock usage