SAP EWM- A Supply Chain Management Suite of Solutions

SAP EWM abbreviated as SAP Extended Warehouse Management is a part of SAP’s Supply Chain Management. This software suite provides an integrated platform for flexible, user-friendly and automated functionalities to process the goods movements and also to manage inventory warehouse.

This software suite helps Organizations to organize, manage and improve the capability and efficiency of warehousing units. SAP has really evolved from its range of applications in order to meet the demands of potential customers.

SAP EWM-Releases and its Features in a nutshell

Businesses worldwide started to use SAP Extended Warehouse Management systems in order to manage bigger and complex warehouses and distribution centers. As SAP evolved with its numerous upgrades for its applications in order to meet the demands of customers, its customer base grew proportionally. More than 5,000 companies worldwide are using SAP systems to meet their business demands.

Starting from its initial releases, SAP has upgraded its Warehouse Management applications by providing additional features like:

• SAP R/3 release 3.0 and 3.1- Integration to SAP r/3 Production Planning, Logistics Info Systems and Quality Management.

• SAP R/3 release 4.0 and 4.5- Warehouse monitoring, Wave picking, integration to Human resources, decentralization of WM and radio frequency support.

• SAP R/3 release 4.6- support for handling unit management and packing station capabilities.

• SAP R/3 Enterprise (4.7) Extension Set 1.1- resource management and task management features to handle multistep movements performed by multiple resources.

• SAP R/3 Enterprise (4.7) Extension Set 2.0- features to support cross-docking, support for yard management and value added services.

To quote an example, as a part of its first release SAP SCM 5.0 offered functionalities to support the requirements of complex, bigger or high-volume distribution centers which includes:

Another example is with EWM 2007 or EWM 5.1, in which SAP offered support for:

• Catch weight support

• Kit-to-stock

• Labor Management (LM)

• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) enablement for internal warehouse
  processes

• Additional goods receipt functions

• Capabilities for direct connection to Material Flow Systems (MFS) or automated material handling equipment.

• Enhancements for serial number handling

• Enhancements for batch management

• Manual creation of outbound deliveries

Over the recent years, SAP has gone a step forward to add additional functionalities to SAP EWM in order to meet the requirements of consumer products and retail companies. Especially for EWM 7.0, SAP added functionalities to support:

• Graphical warehouse layouts

• Additional resource management features which includes task interleaving, execution constraints and support for semi-system guided work.

• Additional cross-docking support which includes opportunistic cross-docking, production cross-docking and retail merchandise distribution.

• Support for production supply through a EWM-managed warehouse.

Summarizing the functionalities of SAP EWM software suite

SAP EWM software suite helps the enterprises by providing the ability to control all its warehouse processes, to manage movements of goods in warehouses, mitigate potential risks or problems, and resolve issues pertaining to the warehouse. It enhances warehouse efficiency and provides a platform to share resources in order to achieve adaptive fulfilment supply chain.

Even though SAP EWM is much similar to its sibling SAP WM, it provides improvised functionalities, value add-ons and flexibility in organizing warehouse structures, Human resources, picking, put away and much more. SAP EWM also offers activity areas, work centers and resources as new additions. SAP EWM is portrayed as a robust alternative to SAP WM to get optimum solution for warehouse management. Being a part of logistics chain, SAP EWM provides integrated functionalities and business processes in its software suite. It provides high level of transparency in process as well as inventory, a perfect planning for warehouse steps and good distribution and storage design.

For an enterprise to get benefits or profits by using SAP EWM, one must wait from 12 to 36 months from the date of implementation depending on the business environment. The implementation of SAP EWM promises both qualitative and quantitative profits like increased productivity, reducing the manual errors, more transparent inventory control and so on.