Technical Articles
Stock Room Management Comparison with EWM
This blog post will help readers to understand the key differences between Stock Room Management (StRM) and Extended Warehouse Management (EWM).
Differences between Stock Room Management and EWM-Basic, EWM-Embedded Advanced and EWM on Decentralized on S/4 HANA are compared and listed here for developing better understanding amongst WMS selection decision makers.
In my previous blog, “Should I migrate LE-WM to Stock Room Management?” I have captured the functional differences between Stock Room Management and LE-WM. This is a second blog in the same series to throw more light on its functional comparison with EWM.
Also refer my latest blog which provides deep insight into the options to be considered when the legacy LE-WM is found to be not compliant for stock room management (What Options to Consider if Legacy LE-WM is Not Compliant for Stock Room Management during S/4HANA Migration?).
I have summarized the functional and key product differences in the below table based on various features and comparison parameters.
| Features/Comparison parameters | Stock Room Management (with HUM) | Basic Embedded EWM on S/4 HANA | Advanced EWM Embedded on S/4 HANA | EWM Decentralized on S/4 HANA |
| Architecture | Part of S/4HANA ERP | Part of S/4HANA ERP | Part of S/4HANA ERP | Separate Application on S/4HANA |
| SAP Future Innovations | Not supported | Improvements limited to Basic features will be added in future S/4HANA versions | Future Innovations for the warehouse capabilities will be delivered by SAP only for EWM component of S/4 HANA. | |
| License | Included in the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management license. | Advanced EWM will require the Classic SAP EWM Component License | ||
| Futuristic Warehouse Modernization Outlook | Very low | Low | High | Very High |
| Barcode Scanning/Mobile Execution | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bin to Bin transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Basic Inbound | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Basic Outbound | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Physical Inventory | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Complex Processes like process oriented or layout-oriented storage control | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Internal Warehouse Movements | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Wave Management | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cross-docking | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Serial Numbers | Yes through HUM | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSCC Numbering of HUs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MFS Support | No | No | Yes, with restrictions | Yes |
| WM-PP Interface (Production Integration) | Basic Integration |
1. Delivery-based Integration 2. Advanced Production Integration 3. Direct Production Integration 4. MES-Driven Staging |
1. Delivery-based Integration 2. Advanced Production Integration 3. Direct Production Integration 4. MES-Driven Staging |
1. Delivery Based Integration 2. Advanced Production Integration 3. MES-Driven Staging |
|
WM-QM Integration (Quality Management Integration) |
Basic |
All major QM integration scenarios covered. Basic EWM is integrated into Quality Management (QM) using inspection lots of origin 17. |
All major QM integration scenarios covered. | All major QM integration scenarios covered. |
| Physical Inventory | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Integration with S/4H Core | Very tight ERP integration | Tight ERP integration | Tight ERP integration | Robust ERP-Interfacing mechanism |
| WM-SAP TM Integration | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Technical Migration Complexity from Old SAP WM | Low | Medium | Medium | Medium to High |
| Complexity of warehouse supported | Low complexity | Medium | Medium to High complex | High to very high complex |
| Recommended for |
Small size warehouses with manual operations without any advanced requirements and having pre-defined set of lean processes e.g.: – Quick adoption of legacy Classical SAP WM managed manual warehouses without any process changes – Small warehouses e.g. Affiliates managed small warehouses, MRO warehouse or stores with bin to bin transfer need |
Small to medium size warehouses requiring full stock transparency and control – Small Raw Material warehouses – Medium size, own operated distribution centers with less complexity of operations |
For medium to large warehouse requiring advanced & optimized warehousing features, typically for – the medium complex distribution centers managed by own WMS with very limited MFS/ASRS – Integration with small to medium production sites with less complex manufacturing Integration need in which the decoupling of WMS from production is not the core requirement. |
For all medium to very large complex warehouses with optimized warehousing features. Best suited for the heavily automated warehouses for business models consisting of decoupling of WMS from MFG IT landscape- – Production warehouses connected to local MES systems, – SCM hubs – Advanced and very large warehouses looking to implement Next-Gen technologies for warehouse automation (like IOT, Smart robots etc.) |
Conclusion
With all evaluating parameters mentioned in above comparison table, it is worthwhile to reiterate in this blog too that one should carefully evaluate all the warehouse key business parameters and requirements along with the long term business plan and based on this detailed evaluation business can take conscious decision on choosing specific WM solution (StRM vesrus EWM)in order to get best ROI from the IT investment of migrating to new age S/4 HANA release.
References
- Should I migrate from LE-WM to Stock Room Management? by Prakash Pol
- 2881166 – FAQ : Stock Room Management
- Chapter 2.12.3.2.1 Stock Room Management of the Feature Scope Description of SAP S/4HANA 2020 (You can find the link to the Feature Scope Description of SAP S/4HANA 2020 in the Product Documentation section)
- Note 2577428 – Road map for LE-WM in SAP S/4HANA
- 2270211- – S4TWL – Warehouse Management (WM)
First of all, good work and nice overview.
Basic EWM or full EWM can both be run as embedded. In your comparison you compare it with the full embedded EWM. It would be usefull to add basic embedded EWM to that list as well.
Hello Axel Breiter
That's a really good point. In my opinion basic EWM is just like LE-WM, with all the EWM hurdles but without any EWM benefits.
Cheers
Dominik Tylczynski
...no expert but not so sure... at least Basic EWM has FIORI Apps which Stock Room does not have.
Isn't the integration into PP also better?
I tend to find LE-WM / stock room management integration good enough. Also I am not a huge fan of Fiori apps in the warehouse management operational space. In my mind Fiori apps are not better just because they are Fiori. They need to bring better functionality or better user experience to beat SAP GUI transactions.
Basic EWM is perceived by SAP as a functional replacement of LE-WM. Given the availability of stock room management option I'd rather go for that instead of basic EWM for simple warehouses. One of the reasons is a thin line between basic and advanced EWM. You'll know you stepped over it during license audit. Sure you can use the /SCWM/RP_COMPLIANCE_CHECK to check the basic EWM compliance. But that's a retrospective check. In a matter of fact stock room management has the same risk, however it's easier to manage.
I have updated the comparison by including Basic Embedded EWM.
Hello Dominik!
Just need to jump in here for other potential readers. Basic EWM is nothing like LE-WM. It is two completely different solutions/products. Apple and Orange. Wine and Beer.
What do you mean with all EWM hurdles but without any EWM benefits? Basic Embedded EWM is EWM.
Yes, SAP have locked down things in Basic EWM where Wave Management probably is the one most companies will be missing and push them towards paying extra licenses. Not nice but reality.
I also liked the more simple world of LE-WM where you don't need an "internal interface" with everything that comes along, but it seems like that time has passed.
Hello Per Lundh
Indeed EWM and LE-WM are two different products, even though there are many similarities e.g. stock placement and stock removal strategies are similar, organizational structures e.g. warehouse number, storage type, some of the transactions are named almost the same e.g. LS01N vs. /SCWM/LS01 etc. Still the products are different, as you say apples and pears.
When embedded EWM has been introduced to S/4HANA, SAP found itself with two lines of code covering warehouse processes e.g. LE-WM and EWM. Again, I'm not saying LE-WM and EWM are the same, I'm saying they both are to be used to manage warehouses. That is not optimal situation from the software provider point of view. So SAP decided to phase out LE-WM and make customers use embedded EWM instead. Given the much broader functional scope of EWM as compared to LE-WM, subset of EWM functions has been designated as basic EWM, which can be used without additional licenses.
The functional scope of basic EWM is roughly what is available in LE-WM, or put it the other way around - if a functionality is not there in LE-WM, it doesn't count as basic EWM, for instance slotting, labor management, kitting, cartonization planning are not available in LE-WM, therefore they are outside of basic EWM scope. Those functions require additional EWM license.
There is the same deal with TM and LE-TRA. Subset of TM functions roughly equivalent to LE-TRA is called basic TM and doesn't require additional license fees. E.g. transportation planning cockpit or package builder are not there in LE-TRA, so they are not part of basic TM.
Thanks Axel for your feedback. I have updated the comparison by including Basic Embedded EWM.
I have updated the comparison by including Basic Embedded EWM.
Hello Prakash Pol
That's a very informative comparison indeed.
However the integration point doesn't seem to be right:
It implies that embedded EWM is as tightly integrated with S/4 core as stock room management is. It's not true actually.
Stock room management integrates with S/4 core really tightly without any internal RFC calls. Whereas embedded EWM still requires integration through qRFC calls. That's is getting better with each release though.
Also the terminology between S/4 core and EWM is misleading e.g. S/4 core outbound delivery replicates to outbound delivery order in embedded EWM. So we have two different terms for essentially the same business object. Stock room management doesn't have such issues.
Therefore I'd suggest updating this point to:
Best regards
Dominik Tylczynski
Thanks Dominik and I agree, it's a very valid observation, I will update it based on your suggestion.
In contrast to Stock Room Management or WM, EWM has flexible process and layout control, which enable dynamic adaptation of the system processes ...
<Rapidfs
That's the difference that Prakash Pol has already highlighted: