Harmonized Serial number profile introduced with Extended warehouse management (EWM) in S/4HANA 2020 Release

Serial number is a series of characters tagged to a product to differentiate an item from another item of same product. The product code and the serial number is unique. Serialization is mandatory in certain industries and essential in case of recall or warranty claim of the product.

Serial number profile can be maintained in three views (Sales Org/ Plant, Plant/ Stor2 and WM execution) of ERP or S/4HANA material master as shown in below image. Till S/4HANA 1909 release, serial number profile maintained in WM execution view only gets transferred to Extended warehouse management (EWM) Product master. My present blog is describe how SAP has harmonized serial number profile in S/4HANA core and EWM in S/4HANA 2020 release.

Technically speaking, Fields for Serial number profile in views ‘Sales Org/Plant’ and ‘Plant/Stor2’ correspond to the table MARC (MARC-SERNP) and  ‘WM execution’ to the table MARA (MARA-SERIAL).  Table MARC contains data or values specific to a plant for a material and Table MARA contains general data (i.e values relevant for all plants for a material).

Till 1909 release, the field for serial number profile is only in ‘Storage’ view of warehouse product master in EWM. Data / values in ‘Storage’ view of warehouse product master of EWM also correspond to ‘General’ values i.e not specific to a warehouse. And hence, value of Serial number profile of ‘WM Execution’ of S/4HANA core only flows to the field of Serial number profile in Storage’ view of warehouse product of EWM i.e not from the values of serial number profile from ‘Sales org/plant’ or ‘Plant/Stor2’ . Above images are from 1909 release and we can see that field in WM execution is blank. Accordingly, we can see the field of Serial number profile is also blank in ‘Storage’ view of warehouse product master of EWM as in below image (also from 1909 release). So, till 1909 release, Serial number in warehouse product master in EWM is maintained only at global level.

Also till 1909 release for serial numbers to work in EWM at global level, we have to define the configuration of the Serial number profile in two places (which often cause inconsistencies) in IMG menu path

• Logistics execution->Shipping->Basic shipping functions->Serial numbers->Determine serial number profiles (which is stored in table T377) depicted in (A) in below image and
• Integration with other SAP Components->Extended warehouse management->Additional material attributes->Attribute values for additional material master fields ->Define serial number profile (which is stored in table TSERIAL) depicted in B in below image

Now in S/4HANA 2020 Release, SAP has provided the option to harmonize the serial number profiles at client level. Merged ERP & EWM serial number profile settings of S/4HANA 2020 release has been shown in below image.

Above settings can be accessed (or configured) from either of the below IMG paths

• Logistics execution->Shipping->Serial numbers->Determine serial number profiles or
• SCM EWM->EWM->Master data->Product->Serial number profiles->Harmonized serial number profiles->Define serial number profiles (This is new in S/4HANA 2020 release).

Now from S/4HANA 2020 Release, Serial number defined in plant or MARC level (Sales org / plant or Plant / Stor2) of material master in S/4HANA  also appears in a new field ‘Serial number profile’ in ‘Warehouse’ view of warehouse product master in EWM as in below image.

As this harmonized serial number profile is now at plant level, a material can also have different serial number profiles in different plants depending on their business requirement.

One of the prerequisite setting to use the harmonized serial number profiles is to enable the harmonization in IMG path SCM EWM->EWM->Master data->Product->Serial number profiles->Harmonized serial number profiles->Enable Harmonized serialization in EWM as shown in below image.

This harmonization of serial number profiles ensures consistency and eliminates errors in settings and use of serial numbers with EWM.

I will write series of blogs with special focus on Advanced ATP, EWM, TM and YL for innovations on S/4HANA Release . So, please stay tuned and inform your feedback, comments, views.