Storage Bin Sorting in SAP EWM and Activity Area Assignment

Overview:

The purpose of this blog is to demonstrate the usage of an Activity Area (AA) in SAP EWM for specific set of bins in a storage type, for PICK activity.

Also, this blog would help understand how bins are to be sorted within an Activity Area and an important pre-requisite for achieving the same.

SAP HELP Definition of Activity Area:

DEMO:

Figure 1 – Storage Bin Structure

As seen above, storage type Z010 has 2 Aisles, 3 Stacks and 2 Levels.

Please note the letters A, S and L in the structure above are free-text, then how SAP knows which one is Aisle, Stack and Level?

Answer for this at the end of blog!

Figure 2 – Storage Bins Master Data

As seen above, we executed the transaction /n/scwm/ls10 and created 12 storage bins for Z010 storage type

Figure 3 – Define Activity Area

Can be Self-Understood

Figure 4 – Assign Storage Bins to AA

As seen here, we only want the Aisle 01 and Level 01 bins to be assigned to AA TST3.

Business Purpose for this could be assigning easy accessible bins Outbound Staging Area for PICK Activity of fast-moving items.

Figure 5 – Sort Sequence for Storage Bins

Nothing unique here, we just mention to SAP that sorting to be done in Ascending manner and Direction should be non-alternating.

Figure 6 – Bin Sorting Results

As seen here, Activity Area TST3 has only 3 bins assigned, for Aisle 01 and Level 01 – All Stacks 01, 02 and 03.

Sorting is in ascending manner, as expected.

Results of Alternating/Non-Alternating path cannot be seen here, since it is assigned to only one Aisle.

Important Pre-Requisite to Achieve this Bin Sorting as Per Activity Area:

Figure 7 – Define Storage Bin Identifiers

In the first figure of this blog, we used the letters A for Aisle, S for Stack and L for Level. SAP EWM understands and relates the same that A is for Aisle, S is for Stack and L is for level through the above setting in customizing – Define Storage Bin Identifiers.

If you do not maintain these Identifiers for your EWM warehouse, the sorting would not take place.

Happy Learning! Bye for new, till we meet again.

Yogesh Agarwal.

(www.linkedin.com/in/yogesh-a-131432162)