We have now released our innovations in the area of Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208. You can find the overview of this release by accessing the following link to our “What’s New in Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208” presentation.
In this latest Cloud release we delivered a wide range of new features and enhancements covering many areas in the warehousing process, such as packing proposals for inbound and outbound deliveries, more Quality Management developments, cross-docking for field logistics, new monitor functions, more user experience enhancements, many new extensibility options, and much more!
And to begin going through some of these highlights, let’s start by going through what we delivered for our core WM functions.
CORE FUNCTION
Inspection Lots for Synchronous Goods Receipt Postings
Our fist highlight on this list came from the desire to support Quality Management during goods receipt processing. With this feature, users can more easily trigger quality inspections for inbound delivered goods, whether these come from external procurement, or if these are goods coming from in-house production. The system creates an inspection lot when a goods receipt is posted for a product that is inspection-relevant, for example, in the “Post Goods Movements” App.
This feature provides a much-needed simplification compared to previous inbound delivery related processes and further supports customers with strong QM requirements.
Packing Proposals & Automatic Packing
Another feature meant to optimize core warehouse processes is the ability to automatically pack unpacked products according to a packing instruction in the “Change Inbound Deliveries” Apps (both from external and from production). A new button has been added to these apps with which users can perform automatic packing based on the configured packaging specification. Instead of manually triggering the packing, this can be configured so automatic packing is performed in background during inbound delivery creation.
This is useful in such cases when e.g. the vendor sends inbound deliveries that do not contain any packing information about handling units (HUs). If the user has created and saved a packing instruction and configured the determination for the packaging instruction based on business characteristics (for example, vendor and product), then the system will pull up that information and create new HUs.
Additionally for Outbound deliveries, we also made it possible to propose an alternative packaging material according to the Packaging Instruction in the “Pack Handling Units – Advanced” App.
Advanced Shipping & Receiving – Outbound Process
In February 2021, with the SAP S/4HANA 2020 FPS01 On Premise release, SAP has delivered a new way of integration between embedded SAP EWM and SAP TM, also known as Advanced Shipping & Receiving (ASR).
With the SAP S/4HANA 2208 Cloud release, we deliver the same integration. Advanced Shipping and Receiving is a streamlined, end-to-end process for transporting and warehousing products, based on the freight unit (FU) from Transporation Management.
It simplifies communication between Transportation Management, Warehouse Management, and Delivery Management application components embedded in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. It does this by using a harmonized data model and by using existing apps for shipping and receiving processes.
The outbound process for Advanced Shipping and Receiving in Warehouse Management starts with sales and ends with the truck driving away from the warehouse. In Warehouse Management, an outbound delivery order is created from the outbound delivery
Once the warehouse process is done, HUs are created and status is set to shipping, Transportation Management is updated with information about the packed HUs (used for planning in TM). The system also updates the outbound delivery in Delivery Management. After the truck is loaded, users can the post Goods Issue in Warehouse Management.
Customer Returns
With this release, users can now post Goods Receipt directly to Warehouse Management upon returns delivery. Previously, a workaround was needed where the returns delivery had to be posted to an IM storage location and then a transfer posting had to be made in order to switch to WM. Furthermore, the
2a) Scrapping goods
2b) Putting them away
2c) Sending the goods back to the supplier, to another plant or the customer
2d) Posting from non-valuated stock to valuated stock for refunds
Field Logistics: Cross-Docking
One final core functionality highlight I would like to mention is that we now support Cross-Docking for Field Logistics. Field Logistics refers to the upstream supply for oil & gas platform with goods required for maintenance work. With this Cloud release, WM can now handle 2 Field Logistics supply process variants:
For such supply cases, the received goods in the base warehouse are not putaway for storage but cross-docked or at least staged to a special area we call the HOLD area for consolidating goods for shipment to a remote plant.
USER EXPERIENCE
New Fiori App “Manage Physical Stock - Products”
One of the key highlights for User Experience is the new Fiori App “Manage Physical Stock – Products”. The new app gives an overview about the physical stock in the warehouse and allows to post unplanned goods issue to consume or scrap stock. Users can post goods issue for one stock item or for several stock items at the same time. It is also possible to enter an account assignment and a reason for movement for the goods issue as well as post unplanned goods issue for serialized products.
Just as a mention of other UX enhancements we’ve delivered, we now made it easier to delete single or multiple deliveries directly in the “Change Inbound Deliveries” and “Run Outbound Process” Apps, as well as further enhanced the “Process Warehouse Tasks” App. For more details, please refer to the “What’s New” presentation linked at the beginning and end of this article.
EXTENSIBILITY
New APIs on the API Business Hub
We continue to expand the list of available APIs on the Business Hub. With this release, we delivered the following:
Other Notable Extensibility Highlights
FIND OUT MORE!
There are a few more enhancements to discover in this release, such as automatic Warehouse Task creation for moving semi-finished products to next Production Supply Area, enterprise search functionality for Storage Bin and warehouse product and more. I encourage you to read through our latest release document “What’s New in Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208”.
For more information about SAP Extended Warehouse Management, please follow us on social media, our YouTube channel or our community pages:
SAP EWM Community:
https://www.sap.com/community/topics/extended-warehouse-management.html
SAP Digital Supply Chain Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCELmE2CEAkcwqpBLnuZHufA
EWM LinkedIn Community:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1952257/
SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208: Release Restriction Note:
SAP Note 3142705
For a complete list of Q&A from the EWM community, please access this link:
https://answers.sap.com/tags/01200615320800000705
In case you do not find your specific question there, feel free to post your question via the following form:
https://answers.sap.com/questions/ask.html?primaryTagId=01200615320800000705
In this latest Cloud release we delivered a wide range of new features and enhancements covering many areas in the warehousing process, such as packing proposals for inbound and outbound deliveries, more Quality Management developments, cross-docking for field logistics, new monitor functions, more user experience enhancements, many new extensibility options, and much more!
And to begin going through some of these highlights, let’s start by going through what we delivered for our core WM functions.
CORE FUNCTION
Inspection Lots for Synchronous Goods Receipt Postings
Our fist highlight on this list came from the desire to support Quality Management during goods receipt processing. With this feature, users can more easily trigger quality inspections for inbound delivered goods, whether these come from external procurement, or if these are goods coming from in-house production. The system creates an inspection lot when a goods receipt is posted for a product that is inspection-relevant, for example, in the “Post Goods Movements” App.
This feature provides a much-needed simplification compared to previous inbound delivery related processes and further supports customers with strong QM requirements.
Packing Proposals & Automatic Packing
Another feature meant to optimize core warehouse processes is the ability to automatically pack unpacked products according to a packing instruction in the “Change Inbound Deliveries” Apps (both from external and from production). A new button has been added to these apps with which users can perform automatic packing based on the configured packaging specification. Instead of manually triggering the packing, this can be configured so automatic packing is performed in background during inbound delivery creation.
This is useful in such cases when e.g. the vendor sends inbound deliveries that do not contain any packing information about handling units (HUs). If the user has created and saved a packing instruction and configured the determination for the packaging instruction based on business characteristics (for example, vendor and product), then the system will pull up that information and create new HUs.
Additionally for Outbound deliveries, we also made it possible to propose an alternative packaging material according to the Packaging Instruction in the “Pack Handling Units – Advanced” App.
Advanced Shipping & Receiving – Outbound Process
In February 2021, with the SAP S/4HANA 2020 FPS01 On Premise release, SAP has delivered a new way of integration between embedded SAP EWM and SAP TM, also known as Advanced Shipping & Receiving (ASR).
With the SAP S/4HANA 2208 Cloud release, we deliver the same integration. Advanced Shipping and Receiving is a streamlined, end-to-end process for transporting and warehousing products, based on the freight unit (FU) from Transporation Management.
It simplifies communication between Transportation Management, Warehouse Management, and Delivery Management application components embedded in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. It does this by using a harmonized data model and by using existing apps for shipping and receiving processes.
The outbound process for Advanced Shipping and Receiving in Warehouse Management starts with sales and ends with the truck driving away from the warehouse. In Warehouse Management, an outbound delivery order is created from the outbound delivery
Once the warehouse process is done, HUs are created and status is set to shipping, Transportation Management is updated with information about the packed HUs (used for planning in TM). The system also updates the outbound delivery in Delivery Management. After the truck is loaded, users can the post Goods Issue in Warehouse Management.
Customer Returns
With this release, users can now post Goods Receipt directly to Warehouse Management upon returns delivery. Previously, a workaround was needed where the returns delivery had to be posted to an IM storage location and then a transfer posting had to be made in order to switch to WM. Furthermore, the
2a) Scrapping goods
2b) Putting them away
2c) Sending the goods back to the supplier, to another plant or the customer
2d) Posting from non-valuated stock to valuated stock for refunds
Field Logistics: Cross-Docking
One final core functionality highlight I would like to mention is that we now support Cross-Docking for Field Logistics. Field Logistics refers to the upstream supply for oil & gas platform with goods required for maintenance work. With this Cloud release, WM can now handle 2 Field Logistics supply process variants:
- The requested material is not stock managed in the base warehouse but in the remote plant
- Direct purchasing: The requested material is not stock managed neither in the base warehouse nor in the remote plant
For such supply cases, the received goods in the base warehouse are not putaway for storage but cross-docked or at least staged to a special area we call the HOLD area for consolidating goods for shipment to a remote plant.
USER EXPERIENCE
New Fiori App “Manage Physical Stock - Products”
One of the key highlights for User Experience is the new Fiori App “Manage Physical Stock – Products”. The new app gives an overview about the physical stock in the warehouse and allows to post unplanned goods issue to consume or scrap stock. Users can post goods issue for one stock item or for several stock items at the same time. It is also possible to enter an account assignment and a reason for movement for the goods issue as well as post unplanned goods issue for serialized products.
Just as a mention of other UX enhancements we’ve delivered, we now made it easier to delete single or multiple deliveries directly in the “Change Inbound Deliveries” and “Run Outbound Process” Apps, as well as further enhanced the “Process Warehouse Tasks” App. For more details, please refer to the “What’s New” presentation linked at the beginning and end of this article.
EXTENSIBILITY
New APIs on the API Business Hub
We continue to expand the list of available APIs on the Business Hub. With this release, we delivered the following:
- OData API: Warehouse Fixed Bin Assignment - retrieve, delete, or change existing fixed bin assignments in a warehouse, or create new fixed bin assignments.
- OData API: Warehouse Order and Task - assign an existing handling unit to a warehouse order as a pick-handling unit.
- OData API: Warehouse Physical Stock by Product (Read) - retrieve information about physical stock in the warehouse and list it by product, for example, to use in determining stock for warehouse tasks.
- OData API: Handling Unit - create, delete, pack, and unpack handling units for a storage location managed by Warehouse Management. In addition, retrieve outbound deliveries for simple or cross handling units in Warehouse Management storage locations using the Handling Unit Reference Document entity.
Other Notable Extensibility Highlights
- Form Extensibility for Physical Inventory & Warehouse Orders - this feature enables users to extend output forms with their own custom logic in the “Custom Logic” App (including any custom fields created in the “Custom Fields” App) with Warehouse Order data and Warehouse Task data on the output forms for warehouse orders, as well as Physical inventory (PI) data on the output forms for PI documents
- RF Personalization & Sound Support – on the RF front, notification sounds have been enabled for system messages caused by actions performed by users using radio frequency (RF) presentation devices. Furthermore, we delivered a design mode to display and personalize every possible field on a RF screen. This option is available only to users working with SAP GUI for HTML with Screen Personas. Now with SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208, users have the possibility to adapt the RF UIs specific to their needs (e.g. font size, button renaming, hiding buttons, etc.)
FIND OUT MORE!
There are a few more enhancements to discover in this release, such as automatic Warehouse Task creation for moving semi-finished products to next Production Supply Area, enterprise search functionality for Storage Bin and warehouse product and more. I encourage you to read through our latest release document “What’s New in Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208”.
For more information about SAP Extended Warehouse Management, please follow us on social media, our YouTube channel or our community pages:
SAP EWM Community:
https://www.sap.com/community/topics/extended-warehouse-management.html
SAP Digital Supply Chain Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCELmE2CEAkcwqpBLnuZHufA
EWM LinkedIn Community:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1952257/
SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2208: Release Restriction Note:
SAP Note 3142705
For a complete list of Q&A from the EWM community, please access this link:
https://answers.sap.com/tags/01200615320800000705
In case you do not find your specific question there, feel free to post your question via the following form:
https://answers.sap.com/questions/ask.html?primaryTagId=01200615320800000705
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