In the current era of living, we all know that the business organizations are able to meet the customer demands and improve their business efficiently within the given deadlines. To ensure that they are working as expected, they are utilizing different software, tools or platforms which are developing and attaining high demand. SAP EWM is one of the supply management platforms that has come up with the advanced features. In this article, you will gain an understanding about the SAP EWM, its importance, terminologies, advantages and disadvantages, etc. Let’s get started!

What is SAP EWM?

SAP EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) is considered to be part of SAP Supply Chain Management which is similar to the Warehouse Management System, but it is also flexible and provides more robust and advanced features in order to perform the management of the key activities in a warehouse.

In addition to being used to handle massive amounts of inventory in warehouses, SAP EWM also supports the goods movement process. It enables a firm or business to manage the movement of goods inside the warehouse as well as the inbound and outgoing processes at the warehouse.

The main operations at a warehouse are the receiving and sending of materials, the processing of customer requests, the receipt and release of goods, and their distribution. No need exists for warehouse management to be engaged in the management of goods when a company doesn’t store/secure any goods.

The terms “outbound process” and “inbound process” both relate to the process of collecting the goods from their location and the process of storing them in the warehouse respectively. The storage bin is where a material is kept. Whenever it is stored in a warehouse, you can always find where it is at any given time or location.

A warehouse management system will control every movement of the goods when the SAP EWM is used and will also provide you with the tools that will help in monitoring the warehouse activities. Additionally, it assists you in managing extra warehouse tasks including batch number creation, supplier management inventory, optmizing resources, and VAS. Monitoring the amount of inventory within the warehouse is merely one function of SAP EWM. It also involves the management of various other critical functionalities and the goods’ shipment in an effective manner.

Contrary to inventory management, Warehouse Management in SAP is not identical. Stock or Inventory management gives you the goods count within the storage facility, but the exact location is hidden. Managing a warehouse entails managing the movement of goods in addition to keeping track of their actual location as stated on certain records.

What distinguishes SAP EWM over SAP (WM) Warehouse Management?

As mentioned earlier SAP EWM is one of the chapters in the SAP SCM or Supply Chain Management offers more powerful and advanced solutions to manage critical Warehouse activities.

Warehouse management and SAP EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) are thought to be somewhat comparable. But it (SAP EWM) offers many advanced features that include picking, RF framework, put away, in order to control the warehouse activities as intended. For this there are many more flexible alternatives along with a warehouse structure.

SAP EWM also helps you in creating a set of new components such as resources, activity area, work centres and labour management within it that are unavailable in Warehouse Management.

For managing warehouse operations within a business or organization, SAP EWM offers a more sophisticated solution. Additionally, SAP SCM or Supply Chain Management includes it which also provides its extensible support for each step within the supply chain and logistics.

Key features of SAP EWM:

When compared with warehouse management, SAP EWM includes some advanced features which made it more popular. Below listed are some of the key features which turned out to be a plus for SAP EWM.

• You have access to manage or control warehouse tasks including posting, sorting, and monitoring storage bins and good invoices by utilizing SAP EWM.
• Before receiving goods from EWM to the ERP system, you have the option of setting an alert for changing data, a split of the inbound delivery from the SAP EWM to the ERP system. And reversal or correction of the goods receipt (invoice) from SAP EWM to the ERP system.
• You can also deject handling units with it which includes different sets of products before keeping them away in the various storage sections.
• SAP EWM also allows you to determine or identify the storage concepts that can be used for automated product slotting and warehouse organisation optimization.
• It helps in improving the efficiency by allowing you to carry out executable activities, such as work packages that contain warehouse jobs that the warehouse employees are required to conduct tasks related to warehouse management.
• It also helps in the  management and also keeps track of the vehicles. In addition to movements and other activities within the yard, there might be other transit items from yard check-in through yard check-out.
• According to SAP EHS or Environmental Health & Safety standards, SAP EWM also covers the handling, storage, and transit of hazardous or toxic materials.
• The ability to more effectively plan for labour hours and resources is another feature of SAP EWM. By managing essential resource management activities well, this feature will help your warehouse run more efficiently.
• You can utilize a warehouse cockpit within SAP EWM to graphically display warehouse important numbers and assist in monitoring or analysing activity using specific chart types.
• Additionally, it gives you the freedom to use cross-docking, which enables you to move handling units between several distribution centers or warehouses. This is until they arrive at their final destination in the warehouse.

SAP EWM Deployment options:

You can think of SAP EWM as either deployed on an ERP server or as an application within the SCM/supply chain management ecosystem.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) must be coupled with SAP EWM to access transaction (deals) and master data and utilize features like availability check and slotting. CRM connectivity is also necessary for it.

The other Supply Chain Management (SCM) apps and SAP EWM will be housed on the same server, which is now thought of as a separate and distinct application. If you want to gain better and more boosted performance, you can also execute SAP EWM in its SCM ecosystem.

Organizational Unit Types:

In a warehouse system, there are various types of organisation units which will be based on the different levels. Below are a few of the organization units.

• Warehouse Identification Number: Every warehouse will have a warehouse ID number that is stored at the highest level of a (WMS) warehouse management system . Each warehouse number will also include a substructure that will map the warehouse relationship.
• Types of Storage: There are various types of storage in a warehouse where products are physically housed, such as open storage, goods issue and goods receipt, and racks.
• Storage Section: It is a component of storage type which will represent a collection of bins with similar properties. Fast-moving or slow-moving materials, among other things, are some of the often utilied storage categories.

• Storage Bin: The storage bins provide a physical representation of where storage space is located. It will enable us to comprehend how things are kept in the warehouse. They are regarded as being at the base of the organizational hierarchy. When storing an item in a warehouse, it’s crucial to specify the exact location.
• Activity Zones: The activity area is the category after storage containers. It entails various tasks like picking, putting away, and a physical inventory. You can allocate the same storage bin to many areas with varied activities based on the activity.
• Quant: Quant refers to the number of goods in the storage bin. The quant is specifically used to manage the inventory in storage bins.

Advantages of SAP EWM:

We are all aware that business globalisation has resulted in markets and customers from various continents. To ensure that the market/customer demands are met, the company must have and maintain sturdy warehouse and distribution activities. Giant firms will continue to maintain large, massive, and greater warehousing, ideally with a dispersed deployment to ensure that high throughput is dealt with. This is not the issue for small and operations for medium-sized warehouses. One of the major constraints is the implementing cost of a decentralised deployment. Further, the advantages of using SAP EWM are listed below.

• Simplified IT Architecture

By making sure to adopt an incorporated SAP EWM solution, the ownership cost is significantly decreased, it will be too low. Also, the IT landscape will be streamlined. The SAP EWM solution offers a consistent user experience that is available throughout all of the various warehouse management & operations’ components, which further improves user engagement and efficiency.

• Cost-effective/Affordable solution

For large-scale businesses, SAP is offering an affordable option which allows the deployment of a central EWM solution as an incorporated application component using S/4 HANA. SAP EWM solution is bestowing the enterprises with a variety of advantages to ensure easy management and optimization of the warehouse operations.

•  Implementation of Solution – Speeded Up

SAP offers a wide range of pre-specified functions, sample structures, and  automated processes. These processes can be deployed immediately and that will aid in system execution and better return on investment. 

• Reduced Data Repetition

Since all warehousing and transactional data is contained within the S4 HANA database, there is a significant reduction in data redundancy. The requirement to use CIF is further eliminated because there is no need for the master data to be copied (Core Interface). Aside from this, the necessity for an EGR (Expected Goods Receipt) document is avoided because it can access transactional data directly.

• Real-time Operations tracking

        SAP EWM, integrated with the S/4 HANA platform, can reap the benefits of the embedded analytics engine feature of S/4 HANA to generate detailed analytics and reporting of real-time transactional data and warehouse activities. Additionally, various users have access to customized reports and real-time dashboards customized to their particular tasks. Furthermore, it offers uniform access to vital performance data in real-time, helping to increase perfection and efficiency and facilitating decision-makers’ act wisely depending on the current state of activities.

• Process Integration – Seamless

The SAP EWM  embedded solution is creating an ideal environment which involves the integration of  all the disparate processes, including those across planning and execution, warehouse, quality, and transportation, product development, which enables end-to-end operations management.

• Modular solution licensing

SAP offers deploying an incorporated EWM solution with different functions that are described below, based on the specific business needs.

1. Fundamental embedded EWM option consists of S/4 HANA licensing costs: In addition to providing the capability for transparent stock & command, including inventory, layout management, process, etc., they will allow us to keep deployment and ongoing costs to a minimum.
2. An advanced incorporated EWM option with more capabilities will cost extra in license fees. The thorough capability of this option comprises wave, labor management, yard, etc. which further boosts or improves warehouse operations’ optimization.

Conclusion:

 As of 2020, we see that there is a high demand for SAP and the concepts in it. There are many opportunities available for individuals who are looking forward to a career into SAP technology. There are immense concepts available in SAP and it is not a small subject that you can make it over by just reading some articles. It is recommended for you to get trained and certified in SAP which will help you in attaining the best career.