Introduction
to SAP Extended Warehouse Management
转自：http://searchsap.techtarget.com/feature/Understanding-SAP-Extended-Warehouse-Management
This text provides you with the
information you need to understand the SAP EWM solution, including the
functions that it supports, how to set up those functions, and how to get
started with a project that will utilize those functions to support your
warehouse operations. In this chapter, we will start by providing some
background and history on SAP’s warehousing applications, tell you how SAP EWM
evolved, inform you about the variations of the EWM brand, and tell you who
this text is for and how to use it. We hope that the text serves to inform and
educate you and help you make the right decisions regarding your EWM
implementation.
1.1 Background and History
In the past few decades, warehouses
have evolved from simple receiving, storage, and shipping facilities to
full-scale, high-volume, flow-through distribution operations. Global
competition has driven businesses to hold less inventory and to get their products
to market both faster and with more precise timing than in the past.
Competition has also driven both local and global corporations to become leaner
and more efficient and to react faster to both changes in the marketplace and
in the internal business environment. Constantly shifting business priorities,
increasing seasonality of products, faster business cycles, and more frequent
mergers and acquisitions are just some of the market conditions that lead to
intense pressure on warehouses to increase efficiency while still providing
flexibility to the business to allow it to react to changing demands.
At the same time, disproportionate
increases in costs of labor, raw materials, and real estate threaten to drive
warehousing costs higher, impeding companies’ ability to make a profit. For
some companies, this pressure to perform effective logistics operations is too
great or comes at too great a cost, and they are increasingly turning to
outsourced solutions, such as third-party logistics providers, to cost-effectively
handle the volumes of products and ever-changing business requirements.
However, this just shifts the burden to a whole new group of people, upon whom
the pressures are even more intensified by the need to not only maintain
flexibility for a single organization, but to maintain flexibility across
multiple organizations. To top it off, those organizations often have very
different products, processes, business requirements, and management styles.
This increase in pressure on
warehouses to do more with less has led to a corresponding increase in the
complexity of business processes. In turn, this increasing complexity of
business processes then requires both an increase in talent of warehouse
managers and an increase in capabilities of the systems that help those
managers run their businesses.
The evolution of the warehouse management system (WMS)
software industry has run parallel to the changes in the warehousing and
distribution marketplace, with ever-increasing business process capabilities
supported by more and more capable WMSs delivered by companies who specialize
in standardized software. However, there are still companies who prefer to run
their own bespoke systems filled with functionality specific to their own
businesses and supported by armies of programmers. But more and more, those
companies are realizing the benefits in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of
using standard software solutions that also meet their business needs. And
those companies are turning to software vendors like SAP for their software
solutions.
Since 1972, SAP has specialized in
providing standard software solutions for common business processes. Since the
first release of R/1 a year after the company’s founding, SAP has constantly
evolved their products to expand into new markets or to match the changing
business needs of their customer base. Through the R/2 days in the late 1970s
and 1980s, SAP delivered software to not only meet the needs of back-office
functions like finance and purchasing, but began to move more and more to the
front lines of managing the product manufacturing, sales, and distribution. In
the early 1990s, SAP delivered its flagship client-server product, SAP R/3, and
it has continued to enhance that application throughout its lifecycle. The SAP
R/3 product evolved in the early 2000s into what is today known as SAP ERP. In
the meantime, starting in the late 1990s, SAP began to deliver, in addition to
its core ERP functions, specialized functions for Customer Relationship
Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Business Warehousing (BW).
The collective release of these products was dubbed the “New Dimension”
products, representing a new dimension in enterprise software.
In the 2000s, SAP continued to
refine and expand those products, delivering release after release of new and
revised functionality. As part of this wave of new and expanded functionality,
SAP delivered the first release of SAP EWM in 2005. At the time, EWM was part
of the SAP SCM solution and could not be delivered separately. Since then, SAP
has delivered the capability to deploy EWM as an addon to SAP ERP, allowing EWM
to break free from its SCM roots and enjoy its own product naming and branding
— SAP EWM.
In this text, we will discuss SAP
EWM, including its history, configuration, implementation, utilization for
solving common business problems, and extension to solve implementations
specific business problem. We will discuss the functionality of the latest
release, SAP EWM 7.0. Unless otherwise specified, all screenshots and product
descriptions are specific to the SAP EWM 7.0 solution.
1.2 The Evolution of SAP WMS
Even as early as release R/2, SAP
contained functionality for locating products in the warehouse. At the time, it
was a basic locator system, but it provided the baseline for SAP’s foray into
the warehouse management (WM) world. In 1993, SAP released R/3 Release 2.0 and
with it, its first warehousing application on the client server framework. Back
then, SAP WM only covered the basics of a warehousing application, namely to
track product in multiple bins in the warehouse and assign pallet
identification labels, or pallet IDs, to the product in the bin. In SAP
parlance, these pallet IDs were known as storage units.
Since its initial releases, SAP has
extended its WM application with additional functionality including:
- integration to SAP
R/3 Production Planning, Quality Management, and Logistics Information Systems
(in SAP R/3 Release 3.0 and 3.1) - wave picking,
warehouse monitoring, and integration to SAP R/3 Human Resources (HR) (in SAP
R/3 Release 4.0)decentralized WM and radio frequency support (in SAP R/3 Release
4.5) - support for
handling unit (HU) management (an Inventory Management–level method for
tracking pallet IDs across plants, storage locations, and warehouses) and
packing station capabilities (in SAP R/3 Release 4.6) - task and resource
management for handling multistep movements that could be performed by multiple
resources (in SAP R/3 Enterprise (4.7) Extension Set 1.1) - support for yard
management, cross-docking, and value-added services (VAS) (in SAP R/3
Enterprise (4.7) Extension Set 2.0)In parallel, businesses around the
world started to use the SAP WM system to manage more and more complex
warehouses and distribution centers. As the product grew, the customer base
grew with it, and today, SAP WM is deployed by more than 5,000 SAP customers
worldwide.In 2005, SAP released version 5.0 of
its SCM software, and with it, released the first version of its SAP SCM EWM
software. This version of the WM software was completely separate
architecturally from the SAP WM from ERP. Although they shared some common
themes in terms of capabilities, the SAP EWM was designed from the ground up
with the needs of complex, highly automated, high-volume distribution centers
in mind.The design of the solution was based
on a coordinated effort between the industry, solution, and development experts
at SAP and a set of development partners who brought extensive business
expertise on high-volume planning, order fulfillment, and distribution
operations. SAP worked together with its development partners in a strategic
development project that lasted over three years to design and deploy a
standard software solution that would compete in the marketplace with the most
advanced WMS. SAP and the development partners engaged in this effort to build
a complete set of software solutions to manage their complex, high-volume
service parts operations — not just a WMS, but also a planning and fulfillment
system that would coordinate together perfectly to manage entire operations.
Today, those applications, including SAP CRM, SAP ERP, and SAP SCM, including
the Service Parts Planning and EWM applications, are marketed together in the
SAP Service and Asset Management industry solution. The components of the
industry solution used for service parts are often collectively referred to as
“the SAP solution for service parts management.”Even though the development partners
of SAP intended to use the solution to manage distribution centers full of
service parts, and the solution was delivered along with other applications
specific to service parts, the SAP EWM solution was built with the intent that
it could be used across multiple industries. For instance, the first release of
EWM (as part of SAP SCM 5.0) delivered functionality to support the needs of
complex, high-volume distribution centers, including:
- slotting
- deconsolidation
- cross-docking
- yard management
- complex internal
routing - kitting
- VAS
In EWM 2007 (also called EWM 5.1), SAP added support for:
- Labor Management
(LM) - Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) enablement for internal warehouse processes - kit-to-stock
- additional goods
receipt functions - catch weight
support - capabilities for
direct connection to automated material handling equipment,or Material Flow
Systems (MFS) - enhancements for
batch management - enhancements for
serial number handling - manual creation of
outbound deliveriesIn more recent years, SAP has added
additional functionality to SAP EWM to support the needs of consumer products
and retail companies, and today, the solution is marketed and sold to all
industries that require complex WMSs. Specifically, in EWM 7.0, SAP added
support for:
- graphical warehouse
layouts - additional resource
management features, including: - task interleaving
- execution
constraints - support for
semi-system guided work - additional
cross-docking support, including: - opportunistic
cross-docking - retail merchandise
distribution - production
cross-docking - support for
production supply from an EWM-managed warehouseFollowing Release EWM 7.0, SAP will
convert the SCM platform, including EWM, to the enhancement package model for
deploying new functionality. This model has already been employed on ERP
following the release of SAP ERP 2005 (or what is now known as SAP ERP 6.0),
and now the same model will be utilized for SCM, CRM, and the other major SAP
business applications. The enhancement package model allows SAP to deliver
enhanced functionality through regular updates between major releases. The
updates can be activated as needed via business functions.The business functions contain a set
of similar or related functions, allowing you to decide which business
functions to activate without requiring you to activate all of the
functionality delivered with the enhancement package at once. This can save you
considerable time in testing the application of the enhancement package,
because you only have to test the functions that are affected by the activated
business functions. In turn, the business functions allow you to deploy the
functionality to your end users faster. And the enhancement package model
allows SAP to bring new functionality to market faster, making it a win-win for
everyone.The first enhancement package for
SAP EWM is scheduled to be released in mid- 2010. The functions will be
delivered in separate business functions, which will allow you to install the
enhancement pack and then activate one or all (or none) of the business
functions and test your solution accordingly. In the coming years, SAP will
continue to add additional features to the EWM 7.0 release through enhancement
packages.1.3 The EWM Brand
When SAP released its SAP R/3
Enterprise Extension Set 2.0 functionality to support yard management,
cross-docking, and VAS, it assigned the informal name Extended Warehouse
Management to this collection of new functions. Though you wouldn’t find this
name anywhere in the system, the features were collectively referred to using
this moniker so that SAP employees and partners could effectively discuss the new
features with their customers.One common point of confusion is
that the EWM brand, as it applies to ERP WM, does not include the function Task
and Resource Management (TRM). TRM was released with SAP R/3 Enterprise
Extension Set 1.1, whereas the EWM naming only applies as of R/3 Enterprise
Extension Set 2.0.What is also sometimes confusing is
that the EWM naming does not even apply to all of the features that were
delivered for SAP ERP WM with Extension Set 2.0. For example, dynamic cycle counting, the functionality
that lets the user walk up to a storage bin in the warehouse with a Radio
Frequency device and initiate an ad hoc cycle count, was introduced with
Extension Set 2.0, but it is not included in the EWM features. The only three
functions that are included in the EWM brand as it applies to SAP ERP WM
include cross-docking, yard management, and VAS.When SAP delivered SAP SCM 5.0 in
2005, it also delivered EWM. As mentioned previously, this version of EWM was
related to SAP ERP EWM in name only. The SAP SCM EWM was delivered on the SCM
platform, completely separate from SAP ERP and without any direct link to SAP
ERP WM or SAP ERP EWM. It uses different tables, different structures, and
different program from the ERP application. In some ways, it uses the same
concepts and paradigms, but in other ways, it is significantly different and
even performs the same functions in uniquely different ways. To hopefully make
it more clear, Figure 1.1 provides a visual diagram of the functions to which
the EWM is used to refer. However, in this text, we will focus on the
right-hand side of the diagram — the SCM EWM.In 2007, SAP decoupled EWM from the
SCM Basis layer so that the company could prepare to deploy the solution as an
add-on to ERP. An add-on is a product that can be deployed on top of another
application platform without being coupled to or dependent on the underlying
software technology architecture. Allowing the EWM to be deployed as an add-on
would mean that businesses of all sizes that did not necessarily have the
skills, manpower, or funding to deploy an SCM server could deploy EWM on their
ERP server and enjoy the benefits of the latest warehousing applications.As briefly mentioned earlier, in
2005, SAP announced that it would migrate its ERP application to the
Enhancement Pack model and that the ERP 2005 release (which it later renamed
ERP 6.0) would be the “go to” release for the next several years. This
Enhancement Pack model allows SAP to deliver new functions in a quicker way and
allows customers to implement those new functions more quickly and easily by
giving customers the freedom to choose which business functions to activate after
implementing the enhancement pack.EWM – When Does it Apply?
Figure 1.1 The EWM name can be
applied to functionality of ERP and SCM. In this text, we will focus on the
functionality on the right side.When SAP delivered its second
Enhancement Pack for ERP, SAP ERP 2005 Enhancement Pack 2, in 2007, it made
good on its promise to allow EWM to be deployed as an add-on to ERP. Now
customers have the choice of whether to deploy EWM on the SCM platform or on
their existing ERP platform, giving them the freedom to provide all of the
functionality on the right-hand side in Figure 1.1 on the ERP platform. In
Chapter 26, Deploying EWM, we will further discuss the option of deploying EWM
as an add-on to ERP.