When moving products from one location in the warehouse to another, SAP (embedded) EWM uses Warehouse Tasks and Warehouse Orders. A warehouse task contains all necessary information needed for a warehouse movement to be executed:
What should be moved:
Warehouse tasks can be for products (product warehouse tasks) or for handling units (handling unit warehouse tasks)
Which quantity should be moved:
From where (source storage bin) and to where (destination storage bin) should the product or HU be moved?
A warehouse task can also contain a process step to be executed (like packing) or it can be used to trigger a stock type change (for example, from quality inspection to unrestricted use stock).
Warehouse tasks are created with reference to a document like an inbound delivery, but they can also be created without any reference for internal movements.
When a warehouse task for putaway of a material is created with reference to an inbound delivery, the system goes through several steps to find the right bin or bins for the material. During warehouse task creation the system checks whether there exists:
A storage type sequence:
This sequence contains the storage types in which the system should look for available bins for putaway. The system will check the first storage type, if no bin can be found (or one of the other steps in the search triggers this), the system checks the next storage type for an available bin for putaway, etc.
A storage section sequence:
Storage sections can be use to, for example, distinguish fast and slow moving items. A certain priority sequence of groups of bins (that is, sections) can be setup (for example, first search in the section Fast Moving and then search in the section Slow Moving). Storage sections can however also be setup as a constraint - for example, slow movers only in section 0002. Using the storage section search is optional in the system.
A storage bin type sequence:
Bin types are used to ensure that packaging materials like pallets or boxes are stored in bins which have the correct size, so that they actually fit. An example of this is as follows: there are high and low pallets, and also high and low bins. For low pallets the system should try to find a low bin, but if none is available a high bin is also OK. For high pallets, only high bins are useable. Again, a sequence can be setup and also a constraint. This is similar to what was discussed for storage sections. "High" and "Low" are defined by assigning certain HU types to certain bin types. This check using HU types and bin types is also called the "HU type check".
The putaway strategy:
The putaway rule or strategy is defined in the configuration of the storage type. Examples for possible rules are empty bin, addition to stock, or bulk storage.
A capacity check:
A capacity check can be setup for bins as well; if a bin cannot carry the weight of the materials that need to be putaway, the search should skip the bin and continue.
