SAP Warehouse Operator – A New iPhone Application for the Warehouse

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Let’s have a look at the current challenges in the warehouse as well as the key capabilities and technical details of the new SAP Warehouse Operator app.

The new SAP Warehouse Operator app for the iPhone addresses many of the challenges that we see today in the warehouse. The e-commerce effect leads to changes in order profiles and massive increases in volume. Lead times for fulfilment have drastically decreased, while accuracy has to be guaranteed. The locations of warehouse have moved closer to large urban areas for e-commerce delivery. Thus the warehouse rents are at an all-time high. Also a demographic-change can be observed for warehouse operators. Career warehouse workers retire, while short-term workers take their place.

As a warehouse operator, you want one mobile solution that supports in all of your daily tasks ranging from unloading to picking, packing & shipping. SAP Warehouse Operator optimizes business processes and workflows to minimize unnecessary user interaction steps by leveraging the latest on-device technologies.

 

 

Why move towards iPhones in the warehouse?

At the same time, Smartphones are now a commodity. We want to enable warehouse operators to use the devices they already know and love instead of training them on purpose built devices they would never otherwise want to use.

The iPhone has transformed the mobile phone business and every upgrade to the latest iOS version unleashes new features and gives us greater "speed to innovation". Deploying a variety of iPhones in the supply chain all running the same OS allows us to quickly adopt new platform features and deploy them across the enterprise. Buying expensive purpose built devices that are meant to run for seven to ten years lock us into seven to ten years of no new innovation.

Key capabilities of SAP Warehouse Operator

Key capabilities of SAP Warehouse Operator Version 1.0 include:

• Guide user on next warehouse task: Allow user to login and select a resource (e.g. forklift) to work with.  Show next warehouse order for resource. Start next warehouse task within order.


• Scan barcodes fast, efficiently & accurately. Instantly read barcodes even in low light and from distance. Handle blurry and damaged barcodes as well as small and unusual barcodes.


• Support Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) picking process: Pick items from a source bin and move them to a destination bin.


• Support EWM putaway process: Putaway pallets from the goods receipt area to a destination bin.

All SAP EWM customers running SAP S/4HANA On-Premise 2021 can simply use the SAP Warehouse Operator app.

Prerequisite for downloading and installing the SAP Warehouse Operator application from the Apple App Store is an iPhone 11 or newer running iOS 14 and above.

On the server-side SAP Warehouse Operator integrates with SAP Mobile Services, SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP S/4HANA On-Premise 2021.

Typically, the system administrator in your company will configure SAP Mobile Services using the administration user interface and create the API destinations to the relevant warehouse APIs.  The system administrator would then share an onboarding QR-Code with the users of the app in your company.

You can then simply download the app from the Apple App Store, install it on your phone and directly try out the demo mode, which works without connecting to a backend. As an alternative, you may of course onboard to the application by scanning the QR-code and logging into your SAP customer subaccount.

Now, you can use SAP Warehouse Operator for your daily warehouse tasks on your favorite device.

Post your feedback about SAP Warehouse Operator in the comments section. Start by visiting your SAP Mobile Applications community page and click “follow”. We’ll be publishing more informative blog posts. Please post additional questions in the SAP Extended Warehouse Management area. Want to be notified? Check your #communications to ensure you have your settings activated.