Product Information
Deconsolidation with Nested Handling Units
Overview
This blog is written to explain how to conduct deconsolidation of Nested Handling units in an EWM environment. The blog will primarily focus to understand settings in Decon POSC and to explore possibilities in EWM to have ”HU WT’‘ for lower level HUs if we condense the Higher level HUs for IB03 step.
There can be business case when Products are packed into 2 level, say, Box level and Case level, hence making it as a Nested HU.
And requirement can be to deconsolidate only top level HU, Case level HU, putaway by Box level HU.
The process will incorporate 3 steps.
- IB01- Unload
- IB02- Deconsolidation( We will check the side effects of keeping IB02 for Nested HU in detail)
- IB03- Putaway
Before, proceeding into details, it is recommended to activate to single Follow on task in below node.
Checking this selection box, system creates 1 Queue for N handling units( 1:N) ratio instead of 1 queue per HU hence making system more faster and this is recommended by SAP also.
–>If no activation, queues are created below. WMTH<HANDLING UNIT>, if the quantum of handling units is large, queue processing will be slow and hence system performance will be compromised.
–>If check box is enabled, system created 1 queue per N HU, and queue is written as below, hence making system more faster.
Now, coming to main point, how deconsolidation with Nested HU can be performed with IB01, IB02 and IB03 steps.
Case I: When IB02 is enabled with Product WT.
Considering the Pack spec is created like below
1 Box= 5 EA
1 Case= 10 Boxes= 50 EA
Inbound delivery with Automatic Packin, nested HUS are created. Top HUs Case level HU with 7 series and Box level Sub HUs with 8 series number range.
Now, moment Unload IB01 task is created and confirmed, system directly creates WT for IB03 first and then IB02.
The final Product WT Task in waiting status ”B” is created before the Decon step, hence we lost the scope to putaway HU by Box level HU, HU WT is not created.
After Decon step, Case level HU closure, we are just Final Product WT which is not desired. Hence Decon step IB02 failed here in case of nested HU
Case-II: IB01 is enabled with Product WT.
Enabling IB01 settings with Product WT, system first creates WT for IB03 and then for IB01.
Once again the final task are product Warehouse task which we did not intend to work on, system should condense the Top level HU and allow final task with Sub level HU.
Closure of HU at decon station and we are with below task, final task are open but with Product WT.
Looks this set up IB02 decon with POSC mixing with Nested HU will not work, I even tried to have HU type check in final storage type. Again this also did not work as in programming for IB03, system ignores the HU type check.
SAP document suggest that if NO deconsolidation is required, then it is possible to create HU WT, which implicitly implies, IB02 should not be contained in POSC step.
Conclusion:
With all the above proofs submitted, it looks for Deconsolidation, system always creates the Product WT at IB03 step . I would be quite happy and eager to learn if anybody had achieved this feat using IB02 and IB03, the final task to be as HU WT. Atleast I cannot achieve this.
How to achieve final task as HU task for Nested HUs?
Looks this can be achieved not by Deconsolidation( IB02) but with Packing (IPK1) as an external step. Hence POSC incorporates IB01, IPK1 and IB03.
Confirm the complex unloading HU WT and system creates task for IPK1 which is Packing, HU Warehouse task finally :). HU is nested
Confirm the IPK1 HU WT and condense the Higher level HU 70010000072, system created final IB03 Task as HU task which we were trying to achieve.
Putaway the HU.
Stock updated in Monitor as Box level HU which we were eyeing.
Thanks for going through it, appreciate feedback and corrections if required for this blog. All testing is conducted in S/4 HANA 1909 Embedded EWM system
Shailesh Mishra
Hello shailesh mishra,
Besides the described situation with this Product WT in Deconsolidation, did you explore the option to cancel WT for IB03 to create a new one?. For example, in DECO ZONE, before you close a nested HU, you want to repack it. Before you release the "B" status WT, you want to cancel it and start with a new WT for the nested HU. I did an enhancement to manage the process because I can´t find a way to manage the cancelation and creation of new WT at the same time. I don´t know if DECO funtionality was enhance to manage this situation. Also, the problem with HU WT and Product WT was the same with a lot o problems in Putaway WT confirmation where calculated bin did not match packed HU type.
Thanks.
Regards.
Hi,
what I don't understand: why is everyone trying to have a HU WT at the end? The process does not work properly with the deconsolidation step in between. But this is an issue of this decon step. It works perfectly fine for me having a regular packing step in between (like IPK1 as described) and still having product WTs for the final step.
Or am I missing something here?
Brgds
Juergen
Hello Juergen,
I highly value your comments and suggestion which you have put. If you toggle some configuration then in IPK1, you can HU WT after HU closure.
Case I: When no ”Product WT” setting is enable in POSC, Final task is HU WT.
Case II: If check Box is enabled, final task is Product WT. This setting directly creates task for IB03 after unload task creation. When unload task is confirmed, then IPK1 HU task is opened.
Hope this helps !
PS: I observe HU required field has no significance, can be kept X, Y or blank for final putaway bin.
Best regards
Shailesh Mishra
Hello Shailesh,
what I am asking is why you want to have a HU WT for the putaway? I often experience users / consultants thinking “if it is packed, it must be a HU WT” – and that is simply wrong.
It does not matter in your first example (with the process steps IB01 / IB02 / IB03) where you set the flag for the product WT (on the first or on the second step). The problem in that moment is that the system creates WTs on the lowest HU level. Which means that indeed there is a problem if you have nested HUs. The flag for the product WTs is required before the final step, that is wired to the step IB02.
Now if you replace the step IB02 with IPK1 (to be more precise, replace the external step for the internal process step SPR with an external step for the internal process step PAC), you can set the flag for the product WT wherever you want. At the first step, or at the last step.
I once learned that the last step in POSC has to be a product WT. Now I am not sure if this information is really correct, I have not found anything in documentation about this, but I am sure that there is a reason that direct movements (without POSC) are always product WTs (and surprise: even if the material is packed).
But it is not a very practical thing to create the final WTs anytime before you need them. So having inactive product WTs for the putaway reserves bins, and makes changes at the packaging work center more difficult. Also, as described above, when a SPR process step is planned, the system creates the WTs on the lowest levels (that does not happen with a PAC step, even if the product WTs are created early). And as some have found out, with this process the system does not make a proper HU type check, or even none at all. There is also a packing specification determination procedure for deconsolidation, but I have never got this working in any way, otherwise this would maybe be helpful.
Having just a PAC step during the inbound process gives you the flexibility to pack in any way you want and does not require the product WTs to be created before the actual deconsolidation. The only downside is that there is no rule-based determination (at least not that I am aware of), so it can not be skipped automatically.
So what you describe as solution (using the step IPK1) is right, or better then using the step IB02, but I still wonder about the HU WT at the end.
Brgds
Juergen
P.S. whereas of course a HU WT would be the way in case you want to putaway a mixed HU in the final bin.
Hello Juergen,
Thanks once again! You have mentioned some of the very unexplored and insightful points about Decon POSC. The debate of why final task should be or could be HU WT is derived from SAP document only. And without storage process, in direct putaway, in that case too, we can create HU WT( Warehouse Process type, HU w/o storage control settings) 🙂
I learnt that during decon with nested HUs and HUS are not required to be deconsolidated( Probably the lower level HUs), final task can be HU WT for these sub Hus.
Here SAP clearly mentioned that putaway task could be Product or HU WT and I do agree with you in learning hub of EWM document, I too learnt that final should be product WT, quite contradictory ?
Well, if you read the above points very clearly, SAP tries to explain 2 things, which is what I understood, may be you can correct me if these are wrong.
2. If destination storage type has Mixed storage in HU settings and HU type check indicator enabled with putaway of HUS allowed, and more then 1 product is available in WT, system deletes the sub level product WT, Very important point mentioned by SAP. System creates a HU WT for the highest level HU.
However, I wan unable to achieve the point 2 mentioned by SAP with IB02 as step activating and enabling all the settings described by SAP.
I enabled all as suggested by SAP
In a hope that my final task will be HU task at top level as recommended by SAP, this get stuck in queue.
Now, the moment, I uncheck the HU type check, queue is processed and final task is product WT:)
And the external step is not wired at lower level and WT created at lower level which is again contradictory as per SAP doc. Looks SAP needs to correct this statement:)
Appreciate your reply.
Best regards
Shailesh Mishra
Hi Shailesh, I found your blog while searching for any experience with CREATING of nested HU's during deconsolidation. It is clear to me, your case is about HU's, which are on the PDI created before the deconsolidation.
My task is to create these nested HU's during deconsolidation, however. For these HU' a single HU-WT should be created for putaway of the top-level HU, including the whole structure of sub-HU's.
In my opinion, the standard RF app for decon cannot do this.
/SCWM/DCONS seems to be able to pack HU's on multiple levels. Further HU-WT in putaway seems to work correct too.
Cheers
Martin