Supply Chain Management Blog By Pingowl
INTEGRATION
Automatic Packing with Unified Package Builder
In the SAP S/4HANA 2021 release we delivered the Unified Package Builder, a generic packaging layer that allows the creation of packages via different unified package building engines, such as: Package building with the package builder; Packing Instruction; Packaging specification.
In this year’s release, we provide warehouse operators the ability to use unified package building in even more processes to automatically pack unpacked delivery items in the “Change Inbound Deliveries” apps and in the “Unloading” and “Receiving Handling Units” Radio Frequency (RF) transactions.
Usage of the UPB in additional SAP EWM processes
The situation where a vendor sends an incoming package without providing any packaging details about the handling units (HUs) is an example of a use case for this capability. Then, by using one of the package building engines found in the UPB, users can designate that any unpacked delivery items should be automatically packed by the system.
Customer Defined Picking and Packing
In some industries, it is quite common for finished goods to be packaged according to customer specifications. However, it was not possible to specify customer specific packing for outbound deliveries. With the SAP S/4HANA 2022 release we can now ensure that during customer-defined packing and picking, only those handling units are picked that were created with a reference to a specific sales scheduling agreement and according to a specific packing instruction (PI) or packaging specification (PS). Accordingly, it is also now possible to protect the required HUs from any changes. This process can be activated by a new indicator in the SD scheduling.
Quality Management Enhancements
As with every major release, we continue to improve integration with Quality Management functionalities. In SAP S/4HANA 2022, we deliver the following enhancements:
- Quality Inspections for Synchronous Goods Receipt Postings
With this feature, customers with QM requirements can now directly post synchronous goods receipts from other parts of SAP S/4HANA into Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) for goods procured externally or goods from in-house production. The system creates an inspection lot in any ERP transactions where a goods receipt can be posted for a product that’s inspection-relevant, for example, in the “Post Goods Movements” app. Inspection lot summary, skip lots and cancellations are supported as well. Note that this feature is available only for EWM embedded in SAP S/4HANA.
Quality Inspection Supported Transactions
- for Goods Receipt
For compliance purposes, users can now capture the existence of external quality certificates when receiving goods procured from suppliers. The system ensures the receipt of the quality certificate before it is possible to record a usage decision. The existence of these certificates can then be passed via an inbound delivery to SAP ERP QM inspection lot.
Quality Certificate Document Flow
- Skipping of Quality Inspections in Decentralized SAP EWM
Also in this release, we made it possible to skip quality inspections if the goods don’t need to be inspected because of the current quality level. When skipping inspections, the system still creates inspection documents but posts the goods from quality stock to unrestricted-use stock without performing an inspection. Note that this feature is new for decentralized Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) based on SAP S/4HANA but it’s already available for EWM embedded in SAP S/4HANA.
- Inspection Lot Summary per Delivery Item
Before SAP S/4HANA 2022 the summary of complete inbound delivery was placed into one inspection lot in case of multiple items with the same material/batch combination. With the 2022 release, users of embedded EWM in SAP S/4HANA can switch to have one inspection lot per delivery item via the IMG Activity “Define and Activate Warehouse-Dependent IOTs”.
Advanced Shipping & Receiving Enhancements
Since the SAP S/4HANA 2020 FPS01 release of the new integration between SAP EWM and SAP TM, Advanced Shipping & Receiving, SAP has worked on feature enhancements in every mainline SAP S/4HANA update. The 2022 release is no different, and to that end, for SAP EWM we delivered the following:
- Order Based Planning
We delivered the option of starting the warehouse execution based on a transportation plan. In SAP EWM, an outbound delivery order is created from the LE outbound delivery.