Defining the Impact of Warehouse Management

In today's fast environment, it is important to move products and materials in the fastest, most efficient way possible. With SAP supply chain logistics and order fulfillment software, including the powerful SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution, you have these possibilities. Use AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), and other technologies, to digitize the end-to-end process and optimize everything, from warehousing to delivery.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud includes the powerful features from the SAP EWM application that help you manage your stocks at bin level in the most efficient way. While these features will be enhanced from release to release, you can also connect a fully operational standalone SAP EWM system to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, to leverage the advantages from both worlds.

SAP EWM optimizes your storage and warehousing processes. This application can help you manage high-volume warehouses, production warehouses, transit facilities, and stockrooms, by:

• SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud or Private Cloud implementation
• Comprehensive ERP integration
• Support for IoT and connected warehouse devices
• Warehouse automation and control

SAP EWM optimizes basic warehouse processes, like inventory management and adds complex functionality for high-volume warehouses where needed, by connecting your cloud solution to standalone SAP EWM systems. The capabilities of these systems include multi-level kitting, labor demand planning, and advanced yard logistics, through:

• Inbound and outbound processing
• Storage and inventory management

Both shippers and logistics service providers must streamline material flow, by tightening warehouse and distribution center operations. The SAP warehouse application can help enhance your inventory and storage management processes and support goods movement by all modes of transportation. It also fits neatly into a comprehensive platform strategy for supply chain execution.

Warehousing operations can no longer succeed as a functional silo, in which the focus is solely on internal procedures. Only by integrating all aspects of material flow can companies accelerate order fulfillment cycles and reduce total cost of operations.

To achieve this integration, your business must move beyond the fine-tuning of warehouse processes, to optimize the use of transportation resources, ensure multinational compliance, and respond to supply chain events in real time. Our supply chain execution strategy at SAP helps you develop a single-technology solution to address all these challenges. By quickly alerting planners to any disruptions in the flow and supporting what-if analytics to speed resolution, integrated supply chain execution helps you raise risk management to a fine art all along the supply chain.

Using the warehouse features of SAP S/4HANA Cloud in the supply chain offers you the following advantages:

• Reduced warehouse costs

  Maximizes the use of resources, such as equipment, space, time, and people and realize new savings.

• Improved service

  Reduces the order cycle times and offers modern, value-added services to customers.

• Increased productivity and accuracy

  Helps standardize processes and procedures, reducing error rates and increasing inventory accuracy.

• Enhanced flexibility and scalability

  Makes processes more malleable and uses automation to handle high-volume transactions seamlessly.

• Boosted transparency

  Gains new visibility into stock, processes and other warehouse KPIs.

• Ensured compliance

  Ensures multinational regulatory compliance for international trade processing and sustainability requirements.

• Optimized warehouse operations

  Packing using packaging specifications, handling of full and partial handling units

• Streamlined supply chain execution

  Traces batches from end-to-end over multiple process steps and locations

With new apps and best practice processes, Warehouse Management enables you to:

• Manage stock at storage bin level for better visibility and control in your warehouse, with a tight integration to your business processes.
• Map your physical warehouse structure in the system down to storage bin level.
• Control and record all movements of goods in the warehouse, from goods receipt to issue.

Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers the following features:

• Inbound processing, internal processes, and outbound processing.
• Handling units in warehouse management and batch management.
• Data migration, master data maintenance, and output management.

The following paragraphs show two typical processes in a warehouse, the processing of inbound deliveries and outbound deliveries. More processes and scnearios are described in detail in the following lessons.

When a truck arrives at the warehouse, the driver takes the delivery note to the office. If you want to compare the delivery in the system with the delivery note and change the delivery, in case of differences, you can use the Change Inbound DeliveriesSAP Fiori app. With this app, you can:

• Change the delivery quantity
• Delete delivery items
• Enter batch information
• Create or change handling units
• Post goods receipt

You can also add items to the delivery, based on a purchase order for an open delivery, for example, if some of the goods that have been delivered belong to a different order.

Output management is an essential part of the new functionality. Warehouse management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers predefined print forms for:

• Handling unit labels
• Shipping handling unit labels
• Pick lists
• Putaway lists
• Warehouse task lists
• Loading lists

Furthermore, we deliver a predefined warehouse structure as a template, which you can enhance using a self-service configuration UI.

Warehouse management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud is based on the SAP EWM application, tailored to cloud usage.