June 21, 2022 | Warehouse management with SAP®.

AWF Working Group

The AWF Working Group for Economic Manufacturing is a network for the inter-company exchange of experience in the manufacturing industry. AWF working groups have a long tradition and many satisfied participants. Discussing and working on practice-relevant topics together in a relaxed, open atmosphere, exchanging experiences with the other participants, picking up ideas on site with open eyes during plant tours, dealing with current topics in a network of experts even beyond the meeting dates, helps you to continuously improve your business processes through external impulses. We are continuing this tradition with our new “Warehouse Management” working group.

Warehouse management with SAP® in upheaval:

The time of SAP WM is running out, SAP has already been relying on SAP EWM for some time, which in the meantime has also been fully integrated into S/4HANA again. As a stand-alone solution for large and automated warehouse applications, EWM can still be used as a decentralized EWM variant in S/4Hana. Another option is SAP Stock Room Management, a streamlined version of SAP WM. Here, decision-makers face challenges: Which solution fits our requirements, how do we smoothly manage a changeover which one brings the most optimization potential for my warehouse? The overall strategy of SAP S/4HANA affects all areas of the company. SAP EWM must therefore be integrated into this overall view – but can also be the driver. This decision has to be weighed up in terms of benefit orientation, functionality, costs, available resources, the corporate strategy and the specific corporate situation in intralogistics.

In many companies, the possibilities of the SAP® system in the area of warehouse management are not fully or only slightly used. Reasons for this are on the one hand a general need to optimize processes and on the other hand a lack of knowledge of the various options, methods and procedures. Likewise, activities for further optimization are often stalled after the system implementation process has been completed, since it is usually viewed and assessed from an IT perspective and not always sufficiently from a logistics perspective. Before any software changeover, a pain point analysis and the definition of optimization targets should be performed in order to improve opportunities in terms of efficiency, process times, process reliability and transparency. Because with SAP EWM, many new and optimized logistics processes can also be implemented in your company!

However, warehouse management and warehouse control are generally not a trivial topic. Despite many processes that can be mapped in the standard, it is always necessary to solve special processes specifically and to consider the real material flow. Special processes can also be implemented efficiently and in an update-capable manner using sensible add-ons and best practices. Decisions are made in the project as to whether the standard is sufficient or whether add-ons should be used.

The possible topics of this WG:

The participating managers from logistics and IT work out the solutions to the challenges under expert guidance. Always depending on the current and future requirements in the warehouse and in production logistics and taking into account the company-specific processes. First of all, processes and process optimizations are developed and discussed together, and then SAP experts will provide you with information on standards and implementation capabilities. It is also important to consider the costs of licensing, consultants, your own personnel and the training required for implementation, conversion and start-up. The selection process must be approached strategically.

The main topics are determined by the participants themselves.

The method mix of this AG:

• Company visits with exchange of experience
  Best-practice presentations from the group of participants
  Insight into the system solutions of the participating companies
  Interactive development of methods
  Targeted change of media and methods (lectures, company visits, PowerPoint presentations, pinboard documentation …)
  Individual processing of questions and everyday examples of the participants
  … and of course the joint discussion

The goal of the working group:

We will work together to find the answers to these questions. The working group is concerned with sharing existing knowledge and previous experience from the design of successful warehouse management with SAP, so that all members can receive new impulses for the design, further development and continuous optimization of their own projects. The focus is always on finding concrete solutions for the work items defined by the participants.

The working group

The working group is technically led by Dr.-Ing. Markus Nave, consultant and managing director of MALORG GmbH. After studying mechanical engineering (University of Dortmund) and obtaining his doctorate (at the
Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics), he worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics in Dortmund before founding MALORG as managing partner.
MALORG GmbH is active in the areas of supply chain management, production planning, lean management, logistics optimization and process organization, as well as in the area of IT and SAP implementation for companies’ logistics processes, and provides consulting, planning and implementation services. Prof. Nave has extensive experience in warehouse management, production optimization, material flow optimization, production logistics and lean production from many realized projects.