Understand about SAP Warehouse Management

In a very early days of SAP...The SAP solution for warehouse management is basically a part of Materials management(IM) module with a limited scope. Now SAP solution for Wareh

ouse Management is very wide in it's functionality. There are so many white papers,articles, presentations you can find online with good website resources.This blog post is all about how you can understand SAP Warhouse Management as a Business owner and as a Functional consultant.

Being a Business owner looking at SAP WM solution

You know about your Industry with respect to your warehouse management.If you take SAP Central component solution for WMS, you can optimize warehouse activities including inbound and outbound processing, facility management and storage, physical inventory, and planned and opportunistic cross docking. You can take advantage of technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) and new workload balancing tools. You can measure employee activities by tracking direct and indirect labor and providing an accurate overview of all warehouse employee activities.

So in a brief The current SAP WMS had basic warehouse functionality enabled with RFID. Employees can direct inbound goods through cross-docking process and minimize duplicate goods movements within warehouses. Shorten routes within warehouses. Optimize internal movements and storage of goods within a warehouse. Plan and execute physical inventory or cycle counts.

Being a Functional Consultant of SAP WM

First of all A functional consultant of SAP Warehouse should be a process owner/member of a Warehouse. Second he should have a cross-functional knowledge of Logistics. Third very important thing is knowledge of SAP WMS in terms of configuration, integration points and technical advancements. Of course I allways believe the right experience will give an edge over with others.

Being a Functional SAP WM consultant, the areas you need to explore and excel in the following

Warehouse: Defining WM structure, strategies, Master Data converions, integration to IM, Physical inventory,Cross docking, Yard Management, Task and resource management, Mobile Data entry with RFID and Value added services.

HUM/SUM: Handling unit Management/Storage Unit Management: Define HUM/SUM with respect to SLoc, SSCC generation for Label  bar code, Packing integration to IM and Shipping.

Shipping: Define Shipping point, cross functional sales and Distribution areas like Delivery and shippments.

Transportation: Defining routes, Dock floor confirmations and Transportation costs.

As always a Functional consultant should learn and adopt the skills and knowledge based on the client requirements. There is no limit on exploring SAP solutions as a consultant.

I will try to come up as and when with my experiences in a proper content on SAP WMS and SCM Execution on areas.

Helpful links for this post

SAP Warehouse Management Guide

SAP Help Documentation on Logistics Execution

Join this SAP SDN WM forum

SAP Inventory and Warehouse management

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