Setting Up Layout-Oriented Storage Control

You can use the layout-oriented storage control if stock movements in your warehouse do not travel from a source storage bin to a destination location directly, but instead travel through an intermediate storage bin.

Layout-oriented storage control can occur due to the physical layout of your warehouse or when you have certain resources that only move in specific parts of your warehouse. In the case of automated storage and retrieval systems, you need identification points and pick points to connect these systems to the rest of your warehouse. In SAP EWM, you use the layout-oriented storage control to describe these intermediate storage bins.

Layout-oriented storage control can only be used with handling units.

Optionally, you first define the storage groups. The storage group for layout-oriented storage control is a logical or physical breakdown of a storage type. Within a storage type, you can combine a series of storage bins for an area. The criteria for doing this should depend on the physics of the storage bin. For example, all storage bins in an aisle are grouped in a storage group, since the goods have to be brought during picking from this aisle to an intermediate storage bin at the end of the aisle.

In the settings for the layout-oriented storage control, an intermediate storage type is assigned for each required source or destination storage type or storage group. You can also choose an intermediate storage section or enter an intermediate storage bin. You can use this to specify in more detail where the product should be moved to. If you do not enter an intermediate storage section or bin, SAP EWM uses the defined putaway strategies to find the necessary data. Additionally, you can choose a handling unit type group, to specify that a certain handling unit type - for example, wire baskets, should always be moved using a specific intermediate storage type.

You can also choose the warehouse process type that should be used to create the warehouse task to the intermediate storage type. You use this to specify which activities should be performed during warehouse task processing (for example, whether replenishment should be triggered automatically, or whether the quantities should be rounded). If the intermediate storage type is an identification point, the system does not use the warehouse process type.

The following is the matrix for the access strategy for determining the interim storage types.

In the preceding figure, a product pallet is to be moved from storage area A to storage bin Z. But in the layout-oriented storage control table for the movement from A to Z the intermediate point B is defined. That means that the WT from A to Z is created in an inactive state, and that an additional WT from A to B is created.

When the movement from A to B is confirmed, the system changes the source location for the inactive WT, which is changed to B. The system checks if this movement is possible and if the WT can be activated. But as the LOSC table defines that this movement requires the intermediate point C, the WT from B to Z continues to be inactive and a new, active WT is created for the movement from B to C.

This process continues until the system finds no intermediate point for the inactive warehouse task. Then the WT is activated, a warehouse order creation rule is determined, and it can be processed.

As LOSC requires the use of HUs, this can give a confusing picture in a picking process. When picking a full HU, LOSC is visible from the beginning. However, in case of a partial pick, the WT from the source bin has no HU and therefore LOSC is not triggered. There is no inactive WT and not WT to the intermediate storage type.

LOSC is then triggered when confirming the WT with a pick-HU. The destination bin for the pick WT is dynamically changed, and the next WT is created with the confirmation to the intermediate bin. This means that LOSC in such a scenario is only possible when working with mobile devices. A confirmation with the desktop app or in the Warehouse Management Monitor would not use LOSC.

While a movement through an Identification Point or Pick Point is also controlled through layout-oriented storage control, the details of the movements are different then with other storage types.

Identification Point

When a destination storage type has the setting Putaway Using Identification Point Active, all goods movements first go to the identification point. The storage type for the identification point has the storage type roleA - Identification Point or C - Identification and Pick Point and is assigned as an intermediate storage type in the layout-oriented storage control.

When a warehouse task is created for the destination storage type, the system creates a WT for the movement to the identification point - but the movement stops here. No inactive WT for the final destination storage type is created. Furthermore, after the confirmation of the WT to the identification point, no new WT is automatically created.

Note

It must be said that this corresponds to the standard ERP WM function, where an identification point is usually used in connection with an external warehouse control unit. After a weight/volume/contour check at the identification point, a new WT for the destination storage type is created.

When using the material flow system in SAP EWM, similar identification point scenario would be set up differently. The identification point is represented by a communication point with an indicator which identifies it as identification point. But you would not use a storage type with this storage type role A or C.

Pick Point

A pick point is used to force the system to move a complete HU (and its content) to this point, independently of the quantity is required for picking (which corresponds to the complete stock removal required indicator in ERP WM).

The complete HU is moved to the storage type with the storage type roleB - Pick Point or C - Identification and Pick Point. The required quantity is picked from the HU and the HU with the partial quantity is moved back to the source storage type (or another storage type, if no partial quantities are stored in the source storage type).

The source storage type has the setting Withdrawal Via Pick Point Active and the pick point is assigned as intermediate storage bin in the layout-oriented storage control. The LOSC gives you the options to control if all pick movements should go through the pick point, or if the picking of the full handling unit quantity does not require a movement through the pick point (or maybe using another pick point).

For the pick point you also define a work center. Here, you can repack and trigger the putaway of the partial quantity.

If another WT requires stock which can be picked from the same source HU, the system creates more than one inactive WT, which refers to the same HU. In the source storage type you can additionally activate the setting Consider Stock on Resource. Then the system can also use stock in an HU that is already on the way to the pick point.

While layout-oriented storage control (LOSC) and process-oriented storage control (POSC) are both defined as "storage control", there are some basic, but important differences between these two types.

• While POSC has a limited number of process steps, there is no limit to the number of warehouse tasks in LOSC.
• Each WT in POSC has its own process step. In LOSC the WT from the origin to the destination bin and all its WTs in between have the same steps.
• With the exception of the pick point, you cannot use LOSC to move through work centers.
• In LOSC a confirmation of one WT always triggers the creation of the next WT (or the activation of the inactive WT). In POSC, this is only possible for certain process steps. For steps that end at a work center, you have to "complete the process step for the HU" to trigger the next WT.

POSC and LOSC can be combined. The system always first determines the process, so the relevant POSC is active. For each process step with a physical movement, LOSC can additionally be determined, if the direct movement is not possible according the LOSC settings.

In one of the previous lessons the pick, pack, and pass process was introduced. In the settings for the process we added a separate start and end bin for each lower level activity area, so a resource moves from the start to the end bin for the picking process. However, at the last relevant activity area the resource had to bring the pick-HU to the goods issue staging area.

In a more practical scenario, the next place to go would be a packing work center. This would be possible by the determination of a warehouse process. However, additionally you would not want the resource from the activity area to make this movement to the work center, the resource assigned to the activity area should ideally always stop at the end bin. In order to control that, the layout-oriented storage control is used.