Around SAP EWM

How to Learn SAP EWM with Best Practices – My 4-step Method

If you’ve ever tried to learn a new SAP EWM process by simply downloading the Best Practices documentation and clicking through the test scripts – you know how it ends. You finish the exercise, feel good for a minute, and then a week later, it’s all gone. The learning didn’t stick. Why? Because simply clicking buttons isn’t learning EWM. I would go that far to say it is a waste of time.

With this blog I will tell you why and I will also share my ideas about how you can avoid making it a waste of time.

I’ll show you my ‘4-step Learning Method’ for learning SAP EWM using the Best Practices in a way that actually sticks.
This method comes along with a small e-book and a glossary  – I will explain later where you can download the files.

Note that this method is essential for two types of EWM professionals: Obviously the Starters who are just diving into EWM, but also The Seniors who are responsible for mentoring those starters. Cause if you teach you might want to teach in a sustainable way.  

Why do click instructions fail?

The mistake that a lot of people make while learning SAP EWM – and this is especially true when you use the Best-Practices as a starting point –  is to start with the ‘how’ (the clicks) instead of the ‘why’ (the logistics). It’s like learning to use photoshop without ever having learned about design principles or user experience basics.

The SAP’s Best Practice test scripts are designed for execution, not for learning.

They’re fantastic for proving that a process works in the system or to use it as a prototype for the solution design (will tackle this in my next video btw), but if you go straight into the instructions, you’ll end up with what I call “button-click knowledge.”

Just clicking and thinking you will learn something is subject to fail. It fades quickly, and you’ll struggle to connect the dots when things get more complex.

So, instead of diving headfirst into transactions, we need a learning flow that builds context, base knowledge and orientation before execution.

My 4-step Learning Method

Those 3 are also the base assumptions for what I call the 4-step Learning Method. I repeat one more time:

• Context: Execution without context leads to fragile learning. This finding is not new and not invented by myself, but I think for SAP EWM it is true more than anywhere else. I mentioned that already in post [LINK] where I explained how to start with EWM. With this video here I focus on how this idea can be applied to learning EWM with the BPs.
• Base knowledge: It is essential to understand the technical base concepts & objects where the thing you are learning is based upon
• Orientation: No surprises during the execution – understand the E2E flow on a high level before going into detail

These are the four logical steps, resulting from my base assumptions and forming the 4-step Learning Method:

1. Understand the (intra)logistics flow first – even just at a high level.
2. Read the EWM-specific theory to understand its concepts & objects.
3. Study the Best Practice flow chart to get the birds view (last warm up before the start – going through the trail like a racer before the race).
4. Go: Finally, execute the click instructions in the system.

Now let’s break each one down.

Step 1: Logistics First

Before you even touch SAP, you must understand the business processes and the intralogistics (real world) material flows

• What kind of business process triggers the material flow and which parties are involved?
• Where does the truck arrive?
• What happens to the physical pallet during each step?
• Where is it stored in the warehouse?

I highly recommend studying foundational texts like VDI 3601 – it provides the vendor-neutral, timeless logistics basics. I’ve created a short e-book for you, based on this VDI standard, breaking down the logistics basics and the material flow for every EWM scope item.

Step 2: EWM-specific Theory

Now that you know the real-world process, read the corresponding chapter in your favorite EWM textbook, the official SAP Online Help or simply the EWM Best Practice Glossary that I created for this purpose. This is where you connect the real-world ‘why’ to the SAP ‘what’ – the technical terms, the software concepts (WO, WT, PPF, Queue, Storage process, WPT and so on…). This builds your mental model and ensures that when you see buttons and fields in SAP, you already (at least roughly) know why they exist and what they are used to in the given context.

Step 3: Study the Flow Chart

As the last step before you jump into the system, open the Best Practice flow chart from the SAP Process Navigator for the scope item that you want to tackle (the one with the swim lanes). This is your strategic map. By studying the flow before touching the system, you’ll see the big picture instead of getting lost in screens. This is like the racer going through the track one more time before then focusing on the details of each section during the execution/race.

Step 4: Execute the Click Instructions

Now that you’ve built context in steps 1–3, the clicks will make much more sense. You’ll see why each step exists, not just how to do it. This is what transforms learning from fragile to sticky. (of course at some points you will have to iterate back but you will know where to check, find the details and connect the dots).

By the way –

If you would like to work with the best practices but you are missing access to an EWM system with the latest release and pre-installed BPs, I can recommend the offerings from IDES24, which is partnering with my channel here. Visit their website, select the system that you would like to access, receive an e-mail with your credentials and login to your pre-configured system to start learning. You can use discount code WM-IDES24 to get 20% off for your order while supporting my channel/blog at the same time!

Tools & Giveaways

To make the application of this method easy & painless I’m offering a free mini Intralogistics ebook as well as a EWM Best Practice Glossary. The ebook helps you to learn the logistics basics and the glossary holds every EWM specific term you need to understand when clicking through the Best Practices.

You will find a mapping table at the end of the ebook that maps each scope item to one or multiple chapters. The glossary is also structured based on the scope items. This way, you’ll always know what to study before jumping into the system.

Summary

The standard approach is 4→3→2→1. The successful approach is 1→2→3→4: Logistics → Basics Theory → Overview → Execution. Use this 4-step method in the right sequence, and your EWM knowledge will stick.

If you’re a beginner, try it out with your next Best Practice exercise!
If you’re a senior consultant, use it to mentor juniors and watch how much faster they grow!

If this helped, please subscribe to my youtube channel or my blog updates (or both :-)) so you do not miss the next video/post!

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Around SAP EWM

SAP EWM Best-Practices explained – What & How

Have you ever wondered what the SAP EWM Best Practices are, or how you can easily get access to them for learning or prototyping? You’re in the right place! In this blog post I compressed the answers to the questions that I had during the last years.

In this post, I’ll first break down what EWM Best Practices are, how they stack up against other options like the Fully Activated Appliance (FAA). In the 2nd part I will explain how you can access the best practices. In this context I’ll also show you a shortcut to get access to the best practices within minutes, not days.

What Exactly Are SAP EWM Best Practices?
Simply put, SAP EWM Best Practices (BPs in the following) are a set of preconfigured, standardized process scenarios delivered by SAP. They are designed to give you a head start by providing working warehouse processes supported by standard functionality and already validated by SAP.
Instead of starting from a blank slate, you begin with a solid foundation. Their primary purpose is to support:
• Training: A starting point, especially for beginners learning EWM.
• Prototyping: A reliable baseline for project activities within the specification phase (e.g. specification workshops).

The BPs are organized into ‘Scope Items,’ each identified with a unique three-character code (e.g., 4RS for Decentralized EWM – Replenishment).

What You Get with Every Scope Item:
1. Process Description/Overview
2. Process Flow Charts
3. Detailed Test Scripts

You can find all of this information in the SAP Process Navigator (select your solution, then navigate to Supply Chain → Warehousing). This is the hub for all the detailed documentation, process models, and test scripts.
https://me.sap.com/processnavigator/SolS/EARL_SolS-055/2022?region=DE

BPs vs. RDS vs. Fully Activated Appliance
When looking for pre-configured SAP content in the past, you might have heard a few different terms:

Rapid Deployment Solutions (RDS): This is SAP’s old approach from the 2010s. They were prepackaged bundles with limited scope, but they have since been discontinued. No need to worry about them today.
Best Practices (BPs): As discussed, these are single, pre-configured process scenarios (Scope Items) that can be individually added to an existing SAP system/client.
Fully Activated Appliance (FAA): This is a complete, pre-built sandbox system environment with all Best Practice processes—for EWM and all other modules—already activated (I feel there is not a 100% coverage of the BPs within the FAA but somewhere around 90%).

Takeaway: For anyone starting to learn or prototype with EWM now, the Fully Activated Appliance or selected Best Practices scope items are the options to focus on.

Installation
If you want to install the FAA on your on-premise system you must download a full system image. That also means you cannot easily import it into an existing system (you basically need a new/empty one or overwrite an existing one). The single Best Practices scope items, however, can be imported into an existing client (details further below).

There is an excellent blog written by Joerg Wolf if you want to learn more about the FAA and how to install it locally.

Alternatively, the FFA can also be ordered via SAP CAL (Cloud Appliance Library) but you need an account at one of the big hyperscalers (e.g. Azure, AWS). Running the system there is roughly 4$ per hour. So the hosting alone will cost you around 1k per month if you want to keep the instance up & running 10h per day. On top of this you need a CAL license after the 30-day trial which is at least another 600-700$ per month.

Based on my knowledge, the CAL option is the only one to get easy access to the best practices directly from the SAP (remember – the FAA pretty much covers the BPs). You can, however, add any number of best practice scope items to your local on-premise system.

The process is not straightforward but requires at least some SAP basis knowledge. These are the main steps on a high-level:

1. Create a Best Practices client.
2. Download the BP package (ZIP file) for your system release from OSS.
3. Save the data and co-files from the ZIP on your application server.
4. Import the files as a transport via transaction STMS.
5. Import solution content and installation data via transaction /N/SMB/BBI.
6. Select/Deselect the BP items you need.
7. Activate your solution (with demo data).

I will not go into detail here as there is already a great blog explaining every single detail (shoutout to Hanuma Rupakula and Mahesh Sardesai (LINK).
My honest opinion is that this process will keep even an experienced Basis expert busy for at least 1-2 days. You need patience for release-specific error messages, retries, and plenty of manual steps.

The Shortcut 
I promised you a 10-minute option, and here it is – the alternative for consultants, trainers, or students who want to focus on the process, not the wrestling match with installation.
By using a hosted service (like the one offered by IDES24, who I collaborate with), you essentially get a fully provisioned Fully Activated Appliance system. So this does not only covers all EWM Best Practice scope items but also comprehensive Best Practice processes configured across all other SAP modules.
The entire process is simple and fast:

1. Subscribe on the website (www.IDES24.de/en)
2. Receive your credentials by email.
3. Log in via your browser or add the connection details to your local SAP GUI.

That’s it! You’re ready to start learning or prototyping more or less immediately. I think this option is a fantastic time and money saver for some of you, allowing to concentrate entirely on mastering the EWM processes without the headache of system setup.

You can use discount code WM-IDES24 to save 20% on your order while supporting my blog/channel at the same time! 

What’s Next?
That closes my quick insight into what the SAP EWM Best Practices are and how you can access them.
In the next post of this series, I’ll explain a proven way to learn the EWM basics using its Best Practice scope items. I think I’ve developed a step-by-step method that makes the learning experience incredibly sticky.

Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel youtube.com/@sapewm (link below) or subscribe to the newsletter (form below) so you don’t miss the next video!2

Please feel free to subscribe to my blog updates or my youtube channel in case you want to be notified about new posts!

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Working as a SAP EWM Consultant

How do become a good EWM Consultant? (Part #2)

In this post, I present my personal top 10 list of skills required to become a successful EWM consultant. The first part of this blog post will cover five technical and functional skills that serve as the foundation for EWM consultants.

Tips 6 to 10, which I will publish in next month’s post, focus on soft skills that you develop over time and build upon your technical and functional foundation.

Before I begin with the list of skills, I want to emphasize that I am far from perfecting any of these skills. It is an ongoing journey for all of us, myself included. There is no end to this game for any of us; the path has to be the goal.
Enjoy reading!

6. Communication

If you think a good EWM consultant spends all their time sitting in front of EWM, I have to tell you that you are wrong. You will talk. You will talk a lot!

When I mention talking and communication, I am not just referring to bilateral dialogues. Practice free speech, moderation, presentation, and, of course, the art of listening. These days, I spend at least half of my working hours communicating. Here are some examples to help you understand what I mean:
• Sales pitches, presenting and explaining why our company/team should be the chosen one
• Business Blueprint workshops, discussing requirements for the business processes to be implemented in EWM
• Handover of functional specifications to the developers responsible for writing the required code
• Project status calls with stakeholders, from operational level up to upper management
• Training key or end-users on how to use the system in the context of testing and live operation

…I could list so much more, but I think you get my point.

So what is key here? With the bullet points below, I tried to break the topic down into its most important characteristics:

1. Clarity & structure
Clear and structured communication ensures that your message is easily understood by others. Avoid unnecessary jargon or complexity. Organize your thoughts in a structured manner. Be as straightforward and concise as possible while still feeling comfortable with your wording.
2. Consideration
Be mindful of your audience. Understand their needs, emotions, and viewpoints. Put yourself into the position of your communication partners (what do they know? What do they not know? What are their objectives? ). Tailor your communication accordingly.
3. Cultural awareness
Consider the cultural differences in ways of communication between you and the ones you are talking to. Be aware that a shop-floor worker in Germany talks in a different way than a developer from India. A US-based project manager in a different way than a key-user from Malaysia. You could take almost every combination here and end-up with culture clashes in case you are not aware of the differences.

How do you learn all this? There is no fast lane, for sure. I believe it is all about real-life practice. While there are some guidelines and frameworks, the most important thing is practical experience:

• Grab every opportunity to speak freely in front of people. It feels bumpy at the beginning but becomes routine faster than you think.
• Ask for feedback. Your team members will be happy to provide constructive (and sometimes negative) feedback. Ask what you could improve in terms of the characteristics listed above and apply your learnings whenever you get the chance.
• Study how different cultures communicate. It’s not rocket science—there is plenty of content online, and you can prepare accordingly once you know how your next project team is composed.

The good thing is that the skills you are developing will not only help you in the EWM world but also in almost all other professions (maybe you are so adventurous that you might want to do something else one day ) or in your private life (your kids and your partner will be grateful if you explain things in a structured way and listen to them carefully when they have real-life problems).

7. Creativity & innovativeness

Innovative and creative thinking involves generating ideas and solutions that often challenge the status quo. It’s about finding new approaches to problems or procedures, resulting in positive changes for businesses and individuals. This is a valuable skill for EWM consultants.

But how do you apply this to the process of designing a software solution? When faced with a challenging requirement, push yourself to think outside the box. Look at your problems and requirements from different angles and perspectives.

Here are some tips and practical examples to infuse creativity into your solution design process:

1. Empathize with Your Users: Gain a deep understanding of the user’s world. Understand their needs, pain points, and aspirations. Engage with them to gain insights into their experiences. Example: Spend some time with a picker on the shop floor before you design a mobile picking dialog that is supposed to make their work more efficient.
2. Define the Problem: Clearly articulate the core problem you are solving. This helps focus your creative efforts on what truly matters to the user. Example: Use ‘why’ questions to remove all clutter from the actual problem until you reach the core reason.

3. Ideate: Generate a wide array of ideas without constraints. Use techniques like brainstorming, mind mapping, or sketching. Example: Sit together with project team members from different professions and let them throw ideas onto a brown paper. Make it anonymous initially to encourage even the most unconventional ideas.
4. Prototype: Build a representation of one or more of your ideas to show to others. Remember that a prototype is just a vehicle for feedback, not a final solution. Example: Draw simple mockups of user dialogs in PPT or Visio during your design phase and let end-users imagine how they could use them.

Throughout this process, maintain a user-centric approach, collaborate with diverse teams, and be willing to iterate on your designs. This approach not only fosters creativity but also ensures that the end product resonates with the users and meets their needs effectively.

….those first 7 tips were very extensive – I tried to keep it a bit shorter for the last 3, which are also not that complex to understand.

8. Humility

Always keep in mind that you are working with complex systems. These systems consist of hundreds of thousands of lines of code, interacting in endless combinations of configurations. You will never fully understand every single detail about SAP EWM (in the same way as your Senior colleague with 20+ year of experience will not!).
Especially when you add custom code, you may find yourself underestimating the complexity. As a result, your solution might not behave as expected, leading to negative effects on customers, businesses, or projects.
Based on my experiences, I recommend staying humble while working on complex EWM projects. This approach is essential for avoiding overconfidence, fostering a healthy work environment, and handling failures gracefully.

9. Build a network and help others

As mentioned earlier, the world of EWM, its adjacent modules, and its possibilities for integration with non-SAP subsystems is vast and intricate. No single developer or consultant possesses comprehensive knowledge of every aspect. However, in almost every project, you encounter new challenges. While project teams are valuable, there are instances where you find yourself stuck, seeking solutions for specific project issues.

 

 

Building a network of professionals can be immensely helpful in such situations. This network might include former project colleagues or the global community of SAP enthusiasts. EWM developers and consultants actively support each other through social networks, forums, and WhatsApp groups. Just as no individual developer knows everything, it’s safe to say that there is no question the worldwide community cannot answer. By contributing value to the community, you can be assured of receiving help when you need it!

10. Well-being

Last but not least, a personal reflection:
Taking care of our health is paramount, especially in the demanding world of software development. We often find ourselves glued to laptops for hours, navigating stressful project phases that frequently spill into overtime. Our home-office days may tally fewer than 500 steps on the counter.
Certainly, we can dedicate days and nights to mastering EWM’s features and delving into its codebase. We can strive to keep project stakeholders satisfied and our bosses proud. Yet, true happiness eludes us unless we also prioritize our physical and mental well-being.
Challenge your body with cardiovascular or strength training. Give your brain the gift of meditation, venture into nature, or simply spend quality time with loved ones. These moments of self-care are essential for maintaining balance and resilience.

With these points, I conclude this blog post, hoping to provide you with valuable insights into areas you might want to develop to become a better consultant.

Enjoy the journey!

Please feel free to subscribe to my blog updates or my youtube channel in case you want to be notified about new posts!

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Working as a SAP EWM Consultant

How do become a good EWM Consultant? (Part #1)

In this post, I present my personal top 10 list of skills required to become a successful EWM consultant. The first part of this blog post will cover five technical and functional skills that serve as the foundation for EWM consultants.

Tips 6 to 10, which I will publish in next month’s post, focus on soft skills that you develop over time and build upon your technical and functional foundation.

Before I begin with the list of skills, I want to emphasize that I am far from perfecting any of these skills. It is an ongoing journey for all of us, myself included. There is no end to this game for any of us; the path has to be the goal.
Enjoy reading!

1. Business processes

One of the essential skills for an EWM consultant is a deep understanding of intralogistics, warehousing, and related business processes across various industries. I emphasized this point in my article, “How to Start with EWM“, as a crucial first step for newcomers before diving into hands-on EWM tasks. To enhance your expertise, consider enrolling in internships, taking part-time jobs, or visiting warehouses to observe their operations, material flow, and software solutions.

2. EWM-specific functional knowledge

Another essential skill is – of course – to study EWM inside out :-). Understand its core components, processes, and functionalities. Start with SAP best practices, as they provide a solid foundation for your EWM knowledge. Build on this with project-specific explorations. Identify the EWM features and functionalities relevant to your projects and work packages. This way you study the theory (e.g., through books, blogs, or courses/trainings) alongside hands-on exploration of these features. This helps especially when you are not confident in understanding all aspects related to the process you are configuring.

 

 

 

This approach will not only help you configure the system but also enable you to decide if and when it is reasonable to add custom coding to your systems. As an EWM consultant, you should guide business teams toward solutions that minimize the need for extensive coding. While some enhancements are necessary, striking the right balance ensures efficient system performance. Although custom code can address unique requirements, it is essential to weigh the pros and cons. I have never seen a project fail due to too little custom coding.

3. ABAP

Part of the truth is also, that I have not seen a project yet that could be realized without any additional lines of code. While standard functionalities cover a lot, specific business requirements often necessitate additional enhancements.

As a consultant, close collaboration with developers during specification and testing phases is crucial. They bring your custom logic to life within SAP EWM. Having a basic understanding of programming is immensely helpful. When specifying enhancements, you can provide a high-level design, minimizing misunderstandings. By reviewing initial iterations of custom code, you reduce efforts spent on unnecessary test cases. Debugging during development testing is essential based on my experiences. It streamlines communication and ensures efficient issue resolution. You do not have to reach out to your developer right away for every scenario that fails; debugging helps you find bugs in the code and mistakes made during your tests. Thus, I suggest familiarizing yourself with ABAP basics—at least the core concepts and commands. Recommended learning resources include books (there are many for ABAP beginners), basic courses (such as those on SAP Learning Hub or Udemy), and hands-on practice (e.g., try writing your own short and simple reports in your sandbox). Last but not least, play with the debugger! It’s your ally in understanding code execution and your best buddy during troubleshooting and custom solution design. There are many good blogs and articles online providing basic information on how to use this tool.

As you gain proficiency and feel comfortable with the most-used commands and objects, try to find code corresponding to functions described in books and help texts. This is where it really becomes exciting (at least for the nerds )! I promise you’ll uncover some hidden gems—features and details not found in standard EWM literature. Sometimes, the real magic (SAP’s best-kept secrets) lies beyond the documented pages.

4. End-to-end SAP processes (incl. ERP)

You can run EWM as a standalone system without integrating it into any ERP system. However, in over 95% of the projects I’ve been involved in, EWM was connected to a SAP ERP system in some way or another.
Without knowledge of the ERP modules, delivering comprehensive solutions or processes within EWM can be challenging. While there are parts of EWM that may not directly impact or be affected by ERP modules, limiting yourself to those areas restricts your scope.

Therefore, it’s essential to understand the core functionality of certain ERP modules:

• Materials Management (MM): Familiarize yourself with MM processes, including procurement and inventory management. Also study how MM triggers the creation of inbound deliveries via SAP LES (Logistics Execution System).
• Sales and Distribution (SD): Understand SD processes related to sales orders, and distribution. Also study how SD triggers the creation of outbound deliveries via SAP LES (Logistics Execution System).
• Production Planning (PP): Although not the top priority, having knowledge of PP can be beneficial. Try to understand the different approaches available to integrate EWM with PP.
• Quality Management (QM): Consider QM as a nice-to-have skill. I used to go for an opportunistic approach here and study what I need when I encounter projects that require it.
• Transportation Management (TM): While helpful, TM expertise is often readily available when integrating EWM with TM. My personal opinion is that an EWM consultant should rather focus on the core ERP modules than spending a lot of time building TM knowledge (whereas I am aware that this might be a controversial point).

In summary, grasp the essentials of MM and SD, and consider expanding your knowledge to PP and QM as needed. TM, while useful, takes a backseat compared to the critical ERP modules as you will usually be surrounded by TM experts when the latter is in scope of your projects.

5. Capture process details & Draw processes In the end, working with EWM is all about processes. The process is at the center, and everything else develops around it. Define an approach that works for you to capture process-related details in a structured way. Excel or OneNote are great options, but other mind-mapping tools can be just as effective if you feel comfortable and efficient using them. Additionally, learn a simple notation for drawing processes (e.g., a basic version of UML or BPMN). The specific notation you follow doesn’t matter as much as consistency in your flow charts (shapes, colors, etc.) and speed in applying it. Drawing processes should become routine; you shouldn’t have to think about which shape to use while drawing a flow. Practice until you know by heart which elements to use. If it doesn’t become routine, it will slow down your workflow. Once it does, you will greatly benefit! This skill will help you communicate with business teams on one side and development teams on the other. It will also assist you with all functional tasks related to the given process.

I am mostly using MS visio. If you do not have access to the office suite, I recommend draw.io, a free diagramming tool (browser-based or desktop app) that allows you to create and share diagrams without requiring login or registration.

With these five skills or characteristics, I am closing the first part of this blog post. These were the technical and functional ones that build what I call the “foundation.”
Stay tuned for the second part of the post, which I will release in couple of weeks. It will cover the skills you add on top of your technical and functional foundation to fine-tune your profile!

Please feel free to subscribe to my blog updates or my youtube channel in case you want to be notified about new posts!

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Reveal SAP EWM

Sorting of Warehouse orders within Queues

My new blog post is offers a comprehensive summary of warehouse order sorting in queues. I delve deep behind the scenes and reveal a few secrets along the way.

The article begins with the basics, explains sorting with and without pre-assignment of warehouse orders to resources, and concludes with an analysis of the logic in the context of physical inventory and task interleaving.

Context

It is important to understand that we are only talking about the sorting within one queue. With a system-guided selection or with a task interleaving approach the resource group of the current resource might be assigned to multiple queues and the queue sequence as such is evaluated before the sorting within one queue becomes relevant. With this article however, we are looking at one single queue only and the sorting within this queue. 

Also certain warehouse orders in the queues might not be considered for the resource type of the resource which the current user used to login (e.g. resource execution constraints). This filtering of warehouse orders is also not in scope for this article as it has no impact on the actual sorting of applicable WOs. To say it again – Pure sorting, nothing else!

Agenda for this blog-post

• Main part: How are WOs technically being sorted in a queue?
  • How does the EWM standard sort the WOs within the queues? Which factors have an impact? How are those factors being calculated?
  • How does this sorting logic change in case multiple WOs are pre-assigned to the current resource?
  • What options does EWM offer to implement a custom logic for the sorting?
• Party-knowledge
  • Sorting of WOs for physical inventory
  • Sorting while interleaving being active

How does the sorting work?
Let us start again from the SAP help text

If more than one WO falls within any of these queue classifications, the WOs are sorted as follows:
In ascending order, by latest starting date (LSD)
In descending order, by execution priority.

So we learned that the sorting depends on two values:

LSD calculation: This is explained in my other video or blog-post: It is calculated based on the following formula: LSD = WO due date – (planned execution duration + planned movements duration)

WO Prioritization: This has a good SAP help text with lots of examples for the calculation. For each WT in the WO the priority is calculated with the following formula: Priority = (BAT Weighting/100 x BAT Priority Value) + (HUTG Weighting/100 x HUTG Priority Value) + (WPC Weighting/100 x WPC Priority Value). The WO priority is then set to the priority of its WT with the highest priority value.

Important: Both values are calculated during warehouse order creation, well before the actual sorting occurs during warehouse order processing. Therefore, if you change your customization settings later, do not be surprised if nothing changes. Both values are saved in the table /SCWM/WO_RSRC_TY (the LSD is also saved in table /SCWM/WHO, but this table is not relevant for our context here). The calculation for both values is initiated by the function module FM /SCWM/RSRC_WHO_CREATE during warehouse order creation, which also calls FM /SCWM/WHO_RSRC_TYP_SET to write the result to the database.

During warehouse order processing, EWM selects records from this table and sorts them accordingly. This process is executed via the function module /SCWM/RSRC_WHO_SELECT, which calls FM /SCWM/RSRC_QUALIF_QUEUE_CHECK, and subsequently calls FM /SCWM/RSRC_WHO_RSTYP_GET. This FM reads the table entries from /SCWM/WO_RSRC_TY before filtering and determining the applicable warehouse orders for the given resource type (details of which are not explained here)

The same sorting is applied again a few lines later when the internal table is handed over to the calling function module FM /SCWM/RSRC_QUALIF_QUEUE_CHECK. This seems redundant, but there could be technical reasons for it (Is a developer amongst you able to explain the technical reason for sorting two times here in the comments of the corresponding video!?).

The example below highlights the way of sorting, based on the 3 values listed above:

At the end, EWM just proceeds with the first WO from the list/table.

That was straightforward right!? This scenario however, is only executed if there are no manually assigned WOs. The latter is always checked one step earlier. Let’s assume a list of WOs has been manually assigned to the resource by the warehouse supervisor (e.g., via the warehouse monitor option, calling FM /SCWM/RSRC_WO_RSRC_ASSIGN_MON, which in turn calls FM /SCWM/RSRC_WHO_SELECT).

 

Assignments are read via FM /SCWM/RSRC_WHO_RSTYP_GET and, of course, always have a higher priority than non-assigned WOs. The sorting in this case – no surprise over here – is making use of the same ruleset that we saw before:

Options for enhancement

What is surprising though, is that EWM offers an option for a custom sorting in the pre-assignment context, which is not offered in the scenario where the WOs are not pre-assigned.

BAdi /SCWM/EX_RSRC_PROC_SEL
* With this BAdI you can influence the WO selection.
* You get the list of manual assigned WO’s and can
* resort them or
* delete WO from the list or
* return a new WO according your own selection (You must set LGNUM, WHO
* & CONTENT at least)

Question from a stupid EWM Consultant: Can somebody explain why this is BAdi not simply called in the same way in the non-pre-assignment context? If yes, please add your thoughts as a comment to the corresponding video!

The filter_wo subroutine does not offer any option to manipulate the sorting here. Therefore, the only option to enhance the sorting is to intervene before the actual WO processing. You can include your own logic at the point when EWM creates the WOs and calculates the two values that are later used for sorting.

• LSD: I explained the option to enhance the LSD in this video (video & blog-post).
• Prioritization: The prioritization as the second sorting criterion can be manipulated via a custom logic using BAdi /SCWM/EX_RSRC_PROC_WO.

Fun facts / Party-knowledge

Sorting of WOs for physical inventory

Nothing to reveal here. The sorting for PI WOs is based on the same criteria as for the normal WOs discussed above. As you learned in my campaign (video & blog-post) about the LSD calculation, for PI documents the LSD is derived from the planned count date. The priority is coming from the PI customizing.

Sorting in case of Task Interleaving

This is the most interesting part of this article in my opinion. If interleaving is active (refer to this video & blog-post if you are not familiar with the interleaving concept as such), EWM applies a slightly different logic for WO sorting, which I found only in the code (spent not that much time to browse all books to be honest). This occurs at the end of the function module FM /SCWM/RSRC_QUALIF_QUEUE_CHECK. Here, EWM considers the distance between the WOs instead of the priority used previously.

EWM loops over all WOs in the interleaving queue (~ the next queue from which it is supposed to pick a WO, based on the interleaving settings) and calculates the distances between the current position of the resource and the distance to the source bin of the first WT in every waiting WO in that queue:

The distance calculation can be manipulated via BAdi /SCWM/EX_TDC_START. EWM itself calculates with the example/fallback class /SCWM/CL_EX_TDC_START_D of this BAdi (you should copy that class and use it as a base in case you want to include your custom logic here).

At the end can see that the LSD still has the highest value, but now the distance has a higher value than the ‘priority’ (which is no longer used in the context of interleaving).

A closing remark that I couldn’t overlook: I have great respect for the developers and I am forever grateful to have the opportunity to work with this software, but why the hell does a 300 billion company like SAP still ships software with so many typos in the comments of their code? Can’t the pretty printer check that as well? …or any kind of AI browsing through the code before it is being shipped?

Sorry… Back to our topic – 

The following example visualizes the approach for sorting during interleaving, that I explained above:

…and that completes the last subtopic that I wanted to address here. As usual, I will not let you go without a quick summary of the most important points. 

Summary

• Sorting is the same with or without manual pre-assignment of warehouse orders to resources (1.LSD > 2.Priority > 3.WO number)
• Only with manual pre-assignment the sorting can be changed in a clean and simple way (EWM offers a BAdi). Without manual pre-assignment, LSD and priority have to be manipulated during WO creation in order to implicitly change the sorting later
• PI WOs are being sorted based on the same criteria as other WOs
• In the context of task interleaving, the priority as a sorting criteria is replaced by the distance between the processing resource and the source bin of the first WT in the next WO

As we wrap up this blog post, I hope you found the information presented in a clear and digestible manner. While there may not have been many surprises, I trust that these last few minutes of reading have added to your EWM knowledge stack. Thank you for taking the time to read through!

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Enhance SAP EWM

Latest Starting Date (LSD) Calculation

I closed my blog about the standard calculation of the LSD with the option to change the result manually. I guess you all know that this can easily done via the warehouse monitor. FM /SCWM/RSRC_WO_LSD_CHANGE_MON takes care to write the update in all relevant tables.

This is a feature you or the warehouse supervisor might want to use in exceptional cases to prioritize one WO over the other (e.g. you get a last-minute high-priority order which should be processed earlier as usual).

This should not be the topic of this blog post though. In this tutorial you will learn about a bunch of different options that SAP EWM offers to manipulate the standard way of calculating the LSD with custom coding.
As with all my other suggestions about how to change the standard code I will only consider options given via clean enhancements spots to ensure that whatever coding you implement will survive future release updates from SAP.

To provide structure to this post, we’ll once again refer to the formula highlighted in my previous discussion on this topic. Please note that this post builds on the concepts covered earlier, so I recommend reviewing the previous post if you haven’t already, as I won’t be re-explaining the basics.

We learned before that EWM is using this formula to calculate the LSD:

LSD = WO due date – (planned execution duration + planned movements duration)

That also means that to change the calculation of the LSD, we can implement a logic that either changes the standard result directly, or that changes the approach for calculating the different components of the formula. Thus, I structured this article in the following way:

• Options to enhance the WO due date calculation
• Options to enhance the (planned execution duration calculation
• Options to enhance the planned movements duration) calculation
• Options to enhance the result of the standard LSD calculation directly

Notes

• I am sure that I did not identify 100% if the possibilities but I am optimistic that I found the most important ones for each of the 4 categories listed above!
• As with my previous article about the LSD calculation, I decided to take everything related to the Labor Management out of scope. The article would simply become too long and I assume most of you are not using LM anyways. At some point I might go for a separate post about LM in this context specifically.

Options to change the WO due date

Of course you can change the planned departure date in the Mapin Badi which will have an impact on the LSD calculation if you are working without waves. But I think nobody will change the delivery dates & times of a warehouse request only to get a different LSD in the corresponding WOs. Thus, no obvious option for me to change the due date in case you are not working with waves.

If you are working with waves you can make use of Badi /SCWM/EX_WAVE_SAVE to change the wave header data while saving. Relevant for the LSD calculation are completion dates of the separate steps (see my blog post about the LSD calculation for further details). Usually (not always) those timestamps are inherited from the wave template. By overwriting them, you can influence the LSD in one way or the other (e.g. moving the pick completion date from the wave header further into the future will also lead to a later LSD in the corresponding WOs).

Options to change the planned execution duration calculation

Badi /SCWM/ES_CORE_WT_RT gives you the option to overwrite the execution duration which had been calculated and summarized by the standard logic for the source and destination bin. When you increase the execution duration with a custom logic you will end up with an earlier LSD (remember the formula above).

*       Within this BAdi method the user has the possiblity to overwrite
*       the reach time based on various parameters.
*       The resulting reach time will be converted to the time unit
*       of the warehouse.

Options to change the planned movements duration calculation

The movement duration can only be manipulated while using option 2 for the travel distance calculation (the ‘new’ way for the calculation which has to be activated on warehouse number level > check my blog post about the LSD calculation if you are not familiar with the two different options here).

Badi /SCWM/EX_TDC_START can be used to implement your own distance calculation algorithm. The Badi is called from method /SCWM/CL_TDC-CALC_DISTANCE (in fact the standard calculation of the distance is sitting in an example implementation of this Badi – you can copy the fallback class and use the adjusted copy in your Badi implementation). Increasing the distance will increase the movement duration which will result in an earlier LSD (remember the formula above):

Once the distance has been calculated, Badi /SCWM/EX_TDC_BRF_CALC_TIME can be used to calculate the travel time. Again, the standard logic is sitting in the example implementation. Again, you can copy the fallback class and use the adjusted copy in your Badi implementation. Increasing the travel time will result in an earlier LSD (remember the formula above):

The Badi is called from method /SCWM/CL_TDC-/SCWM/IF_LM_TDC~GET_TIME_FOR_LSD

Options to change the result of the standard LSD calculation directly

The most important Badi here is /SCWM/EX_RSRC_PROC_WO, which can be used to simply overwrite the result of the standard LSD calculation. Of course this Badi is only called in case FM /SCWM/RSRC_WHO_CREATE is executed, which is only the case if the WO is assigned to a resource management relevant queue.

This Badi is called to update the standard calculation before it is being saved to the DB the first time. In addition to this, you have an option to update the LSD at an even later point in time. Badi /SCWM/EX_CORE_CO_POST gives you a possibility to update the LSD of WO X, with the confirmation a WT from WO Y. An example implementation is given with class /SCWM/CL_EI_CORE_POST_CONS_WHO which can for instance be used to synchronize the completion of WOs which are processed in different activity areas. I wrote a detailed blog post about this feature a while ago (you can also find it on Youtube).

Last but not least – and worth it to mention here – SAP provides an API to change the warehouse order header data from any kind of custom logic, sitting with EWM or in some kind of custom/non-SAP software.

Class /SCWM/CL_API_WHSE_ORDER, method /SCWM/IF_API_WHSE_ORDER~UPDATE:

To conclude this post, as promised in my blog about LSD calculation, we will take a small step away from classical deliveries as warehouse requests towards production material requests.

Most of the options listed above are not applicable for PMRs. However, Badi /SCWM/EX_MFG_STAGE_WT_SO provides the option to set the pick completion date during staging WT creation. This date will later be used to calculate the due date and the LSD, particularly if you are working with a single-order staging approach. If you are working with cross-order staging, you can use Badi /SCWM/EX_MFG_STAGE_WT_CO.

Both Badis are called via the interface method ENRICH_DATA from class /SCWM/CL_MFG_STP_STAGE, using the methods PREPARE_WT_SINGLE and PREPARE_WT_CROSS, respectively:

The method offers a changeable structure where you can adjust the pick completion date:

SAP provides an example implementation of the single-order staging Badi (class /SCWM/CL_EI_MFG_STAGE_WT_SO), which includes logic to set the LSD based on the requirements date. This date is determined in the ERP system for the production order components and is mapped to the EWM date type SCMPREQ of the PMR item:

Please note that this class is not invoked as a fallback. Therefore, EWM will not set the LSD for PMR WOs unless you implement this Badi. You can either use the example class provided or copy it and incorporate your own logic. Based on my tests, this approach has been working quite well:

Not that the approach for the determination of the LSD based on the requirements date will not work that easily in case you are working with a cross-order staging approach. You can indeed use the Badi that I mentioned before and implement a similar logic but you will have to implement an additional Badi to end up with the same result. Cross-order staging WTs do not have a reference to a specific PMR item, which would be required though in case you want to read the requirements date based on this reference. One option is to /SCWM/EX_MFG_STAGE_INFO before to link the PMR item data to the staging item/task. Shoutout at this point to Ales Knor from advisio.tech who drew my attention to this!

That wraps up my review on enhancing the LSD calculation. I’ve outlined various options for you to jump in at different stages, and I’m confident that one of these approaches will meet your project’s specific requirements for calculating LSD!

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