Picking Outbound Deliveries with EWM

For goods issue in an SAP EWM managed warehouse, different documents are used, depending on the business process and system settings. In the case of a sales order, an outbound delivery is used. There is a Logistics Execution (LE) outbound delivery and corresponding documents in SAP EWM. To supply manufacturing orders, LE outbound deliveries may be created, but it is also possible to create a production material request directly in SAP EWM, thereby reducing the number of documents in frequently running production processes.

Determining the Warehouse Number

Once the picking storage location is determined and the combination of plant and storage location is assigned to a warehouse number, then picking must be performed using SAP WM or SAP EWM.

The SAP EWM Warehouse Management Monitor is a central tool designed to inform warehouse managers about the current situation in the warehouse and demands placed on warehouse resources. This information enables them to take appropriate actions.

The warehouse management monitor also contains alert-monitoring capabilities. These highlight any actual and/or potential problems in the warehouse, and provide exception-handling tools to help correct any problem situations.

Based on the proper authorizations, it is also possible to execute functions directly in the monitor, for example:

• Create or confirm warehouse tasks and warehouse orders

• Change or block bins

• Trigger wave processing

The tool is highly customizable and the information displayed can also be extended. For example, it is possible to create custom nodes and monitors.

Customers can use the standard SAP Warehouse Management Monitor or can create their own monitor in customizing. If you use the standard SAP monitor, you can tailor it to your needs by hiding nodes or creating new variant nodes based on the standard nodes. Creating variant nodes enables you to create your own nodes, which are based on standard nodes but with specific selection criteria or a specific layout.

By default, object information is displayed as a list view. The list view is using a SAP List Viewer (ALV) grid, and it offers all standard ALV functionality, including sorting, filtering and printing. You can toggle to Form View for a selected object. The form view provides a focused view of the object, and more-detailed information than the list view. The form view is displayed in an HTML viewer.

The physical movement of materials is controlled using warehouse tasks. In picking, warehouse tasks attempt to find the most appropriate quant(s) to satisfy what has been requested in the outbound delivery order.

A quant is a record of stock of a specific material in a warehouse storage bin. When you place material into an empty bin during SAP EWM putaway processing, the system generates a quant in that storage bin. When you remove the quantity from storage during EWM picking, the system automatically deletes the quant.

When you create a warehouse task with reference to an outbound delivery order, the system considers two things to find the right stock:

• A storage type search sequence:

  This sequence contains the storage types in which the system should look for bins containing the required material. The system checks the first storage type and, if no stock can be found, checks the next storage type, and so on.

  For picking, the storage type search sequence can also contain a storage type group. A group is used to consider quants from different storage types at the same time, and uses criteria from the stock removal rule for the quant determination

• The stock removal rule (or picking strategy) can be assigned to a storage type, but can also be determined in general in conjunction with the storage type search sequence. This is especially fitting if you have rules such as FIFO (first in, first out), which looks for the oldest quant in the storage types in their defined sequence; or stringent FIFO, which uses a storage type group.