Creating Storage Bins and Displaying Quants

Storage bins are created as master data records within a warehouse number. The only other assignment which is always necessary is the storage type to which the bin belongs. This storage type controls, for example, the putaway and picking strategy that is relevant within that storage type.

Storage sections are used to control the putaway of goods in a storage type, for example, to distinguish between fast and slow moving items, or to separate hazardous materials in a specific section.

In a warehouse (both in LE-WM/Stock Room Management and also in (embedded) EWM), a quant refers to the contents of a specific storage bin. There are default criteria that the SAP S/4HANA system uses during a putaway and also during a stock removal process to determine the material quantity that forms a quant in a storage bin.

The default quant criteria are the following:

• Material number
• Stock type
• Special stock type
• Plant and storage location to which the material belongs
• Batch number (if necessary)
• Handling Unit number (if existing)

The stock type, special stock type and plant and storage location to which a material belongs (called the Owner in (embedded) EWM) are all Inventory Management characteristics of the material that is stored in a bin. When an inbound delivery is received, Inventory Management indicates the stock type in which the material quantity is received. Quality Management (QM) processes can change the stock type before or after inspections. Concerning special stock types: quantities of a material can for example be flagged as special project stock or as customer consignment stock. If the inventory quantity of a material is managed in several storage locations (for example, to differentiate normal stock from spare parts stock), the plant and storage location combination to which a specific material quantity belongs, is also important. All of these characteristics are important when forming a quant in a storage bin in the selected Warehouse Management solution.

Example: if you want to put away a material partially in unrestricted-use stock and partially in quality inspection stock, at least two quants are generated in the Warehouse Management system.

If you use batch management as a cross-component functionality in your SAP S/4HANA system, the batch number of a material quantity that you receive, is also a quant characteristic. If you have activated batch management in a material master record, you need to enter the relevant batch for each goods movement. In the Warehouse Management system, you must be able to determine at any point which material quantity belongs to which batch, so batch is then also a quant characteristic.

Configuration settings in the system on storage type level determine whether addition to existing stock and/or mixed storage is allowed in a storage bin. Addition to existing stock means that an already existing quant in a bin can be extended when an additional quantity of the same material is received that matches all other quant characteristics of the existing quant. Be careful: at that moment, some important information like for example the goods receipt date might not be clear anymore for the complete quant. Mixed storage means that different materials or different batches of a material are stored in one bin. Beside the issue of capacity checks, which is then necessary, this might also create practical issues in handling and finding the correct quants during a picking process.

To understand the concept of a quant, it is also helpful to understand the different way in which stock is displayed in Inventory Management compared to Warehouse Management.

In Inventory Management (IM), you can see the different types of stock (like unrestricted-use stock, quality inspection stock, blocked stock) on various levels within your company (company code, plant, and storage location). You only see quantities. You do not see where the stock is physically located. In Warehouse Management, physical information is added to this: the actual storage bin(s) where material is stored, are visible.