Handling of Returnable Transfer Packing (RTP) in EWM

[Former Member]

Our scenario:

Our base product is gas and hence always stored in cylinder (gas can’t be stored standalone). Cylinders are RTPs sent to customer and customer returns them back. The RTPs are serial number tracked (“C” –Serial Number Requirement in inventory Management – tracking till bin level in EWM). We need to do putaway, pick, PI, adjustment, internal transfer etc for both of them together (not separately) as they are one physical entity from the handling perspective.

The below methods have already been checked and not working for us

• Pack base product in RTP as main packaging material (cylinder), create HU and store HU in warehouse. But main packaging material can’t be serial number managed/tracked.
• Pack both base product and RTP as auxiliary packaging material, create HU and store HU in warehouse. Although auxiliary pack material as content in HU can be serial number managed, standard transactions (/SCWM/PRDI & /SCWM/PACK) do not allow entering serial numbers against the auxiliary packaging material in HU. Moreover why to create another license plate as HU as we have already the serial number as license plate.
• Pack both base material and RTP as normal products in HU, create HU and store HU in warehouse. Serial numbers can be entered for RTP. But why to create another license plate for HU as we already have a license plate for serial number. We can’t even use the serial number as external HU number because serial number is unique at product level whereas HU is unique at warehouse level.
• Store both the base material and RTP separately in bin (no HU). But why to putaway, pick and PI etc them separately. There are chances or errors/mistakes.

What is best and efficient method in EWM to handle the RTP and base product together from storage and handling perspective? What is the SAP standard suggests for the scenario? If not any existing, is there is any roadmap from SAP for this in future?

Any suggestion, recommendation, SAP best practices or SAP road map in this process will be highly appreciated.

[Former Member]

Gentle follow up for any response please.

[jinoyjoshy]

Hi ,

Any luck on solution , i would like to understand if you have achieved it in standard ??

Thanks

Jinoy Joshy

[former_member318798]

Same here looking for a standard solution, was anyone able to achieve this requirement?

[oar_hahn]

Hello,

My client has some similar requirements where we need to track&trace a specific transport tool (expensive flight container), but we also need to be able to store materials into this container. We managed to solve this by creating a serialized RTP-material and packaging material of type VERP for the flight container.

We pack the serialized RTP-material into a Handling Unit, where the packaging material is the VERP-material. Via a small development we make sure that the Handling Unit number always equals the serial number of the RTP-material. Next to that, we make sure that the RTP-material can never be unpacked from the HU.

I think you could use a similar setup in your case. You could 'pack' the gas and cylinder into the HU, and move them around your warehouse as a HU.

Regards,

Oliver

[Former Member]

Appreciate your response Oliver. We considered already the same solution (3rd bullet point of the original post). But as you already successfully implemented this, it makes us think more on this option as probable solution.

Thanks again.

[former_member183610]

Hi,

Is it possible to use text field at HU level to maintain the serial number. ?

Just go through one of the archived blog regarding this.

https://archive.sap.com/discussions/thread/1855031

BR,

C K Reddy

[Former Member]

Appreciate your response again Reddy.

As you said/the thread mentions, we have to resort to enhancements (although not preferred) to achieve the functionality.

Before that we would like to find out if any standard solution made available by SAP lately or on it's way (future road map).

Still request guys to respond with your valuable feedback.

Thanks

[Former Member]

Gentle reminders for more responses please...

[former_member183610]

Hi,

Here I am trying to provide some information regarding this,not sure either it can help...

in EWM, we can handle empty HUs also, so try to maintain the serial numbers against the packaging material ( cylinder ). Once we can make it empty, it can possible to trace out in EWM.

BR,

C K Reddy

[Former Member]

Thanks Reddy. Appreciate you responded.

We did try maintaining main packaging material as serialized while creating HU but it failed. Please refer the 1st bullet point of my initial post.

Please respond with any other thoughts you can possibly think of. Request other experts to respond as well with your thoughts.