Understanding the Packing function in SAP ERP

Packing function in SAP system is very important for Distribution centers and Retail outlet stores in order to exchange their goods data requirements between suppliers and Ship-to parties. The Ship-to parties can scan and check the goods through Pallet/Carton label information. This will optimize their business process by knowing the product information with load carriers and their weight and volume. I would not like to repeat help.sap.com information here in this blog, but i would certainly cover the functionality with business requirements.Using this Packing function, you can assign your delivery items to delivery document to a package with packing slips and Pallet/Carton labels. You can also manage stocks of packaging materials and if required you can bill to your ship-to party.


SAP Packing Terminology:
Before describing more, we need to understand the packaging materials in detail. The finished or trading goods that are going to ship/receive will be packed in load carriers. The examples of load carriers (term packaging material in SAP) are containers, pallets, case cartons and inner-boxes. These packing materials need to be created in material master with material type “VERP”. The Physical unit of packaging material is called Handling unit (HU). This handling units will have a identification number in SAP by either internal or own international recognized SSCC numbers. You can enter vast amount of information in HUs like tracking numbers and texts apart from weight and volume.

There are several steps in packing function like manual packing and auto packing with single level and multi level packing. For Example, you first pack the delivery items into carton box, then pack the boxes on to pallets, and finally pack the pallets into containers. Here i can not put the screen shots for the below customization steps.

Packing Control:
In customizing, we can set the delivery item category is relevant for packing or not. In general, allow packing control column remains blank. use can also set “A” must pack and “B” cannot pack. For batches, if you set “column”K” indicator, the main item is packed but not the split item. i.e item for the total qty with out the batch details is packed.
Logistics Execution >Shipping>Packing> Packing control by item category.

Connection between “material to pack” and “packaging material”:
Packing materials using “Packaging material type” in customizing is as follows.
Logistics Execution >Shipping>Packing> Define Packing Material Types.
Important fields to know are “Plant determine”, “Pack matl cat”, “GenerateDlvitems”, “Number assignment”, “HU type”, “Int interval” and “Ext interval”. In general the structure of SSCC code is predefined. SSCC stands for “Serial Shipping Container Code”. I need to explore more on this SSCC18 structure. As of now with my experience i have two examples from two clients.
The number contains : 1+7+9+1 = 18 digit
begins with “3” + 7 digit ILN number + 9 digit consecutive number + one digit check

other client have like: 7+9+2 = 18 digit
7 digit ILN number + 9 digit consecutive number + two digit check

Group your Materials that are packed in the first instance with the same packing material
(such as boxes, pallets, inner-boxes)
Logistics Execution >Shipping>Packing> Define Material group for Packaging Material.

Combination of “packing material types” and “packing material groups”
Logistics Execution >Shipping>Packing> Define Allowed Packaging Material.

Master Data for Packing material:
Maintain the packing materials using the material type “VERP”.
The “Sales: general/Plant View: important fields “Pakaging mat. type”, “Matl Grp Pack Matls”, “allowed pkg weight”, and “allowed pkg volume” .
The “Sales: sales org.2: Item category group “VERP”.

Define number ranges for SSCC numbers:
Logistics General > Handling Unit management > External Identification > SSCC Generation Acc. to EAN 128 “ILN for SSCC Generation at Storage location Level.”

Manual Packing:
To understand Manual packing function first before going for automatic packing, the Tcode Vl02n is best. You can pack, unpack and delete the HU’s here.

Automatic Packing:
If you want to trigger automatic packing as soon as you have created the the delivery document, you have to select the “automatic packing” indicator at the Delivery Type level
Logistics Execution > Shipping > Deliveries and select delivery type “LF-Delivery”.
Automatic packing also supports the PACKMODI enhancement.

Packing proposal by packing instructions:
For this you need to make required customized settings, enter packing instructions and determine the rules via condition technique. This will not be covered in this blog post now. But by now you know all the important requirements in SAP packing function along with customization path.

Important Technical informations:
TCode
HU monitor: HUMO
Tables:
HU header : VEKP
HU item : VEPO
HU-TO table is : LTHU
Auto pack at Delivery creation: BADI_HU_AUTOPACK

I tried to keep very few things which are important being a consultant in SAP WMS.
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