We are happy to share that we have released our innovations for Warehouse Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition 2308 release. You can find the overview of this release by accessing the following link to our “What's new presentation”.
In this latest Cloud release we delivered a wide range of improvements to outbound processes including wave management, automatic packing and loading by RF. We also put an emphasis on improving the user experience by adding new features to the app Manage Outbound Delivery Orders as well as offering a new app called Advanced Shipping & Receiving Cockpit. Additionally, we offer more extensibility options so customers can further tailor the system to their requirements.
Below we will provide a few of the key highlights of the new release, starting with a highlight for outbound processing.
CORE FUNCTION
Wave Management
With wave management you can combine outbound delivery order items into waves to then create picking warehouse tasks across all items by releasing the wave.
As a first step, wave templates need to be created to define different business scenarios for waves such as export shipments or domestic shipments. For each wave template further attributes can be specified: Time settings such as the cutoff time can be defined as well as a capacity profile to define the maximum volume or weight for a wave. Thereby the system can determine which outbound delivery order items may be added to a certain wave, making sure not to exceed the cutoff time or any capacity settings.
When the wave templates have been defined, the wave creation can be started using the app Schedule Wave Creation. With this app, different parameters such as route, staging area or ship-to party are available as selection criteria for the outbound delivery order items that shall be added to the same wave. There are also parameters available to influence the wave creation such as the wave template.
Once the waves have been created, they are ready for further processing in the Warehouse Monitor. There are various actions available, the most important one being the release of the wave which will lead to the warehouse task creation for all outbound delivery order items within the wave. The warehouse order creation framework can then build optimized warehouse orders, due to the large amount of warehouse tasks created at the same time.
As this “wave” of warehouse tasks breaks on the warehouse, the actual picking can start.
Automatic Packing in Outbound Work Center
Certain products are always packed the same way – either in general or specific to certain customers. For such scenarios it is quite cumbersome for the warehouse operative to manually record the packing in the system as this can feel like unnecessary, additional, and repetitive effort. We have therefore enabled a new feature that allows to automatically create handling units (HUs) based on packing instructions, including HU hierarchies, in the Pack Handling Units - Advanced and the Work Center Packing for Outbound Delivery apps. The availability of this feature can be configured per work center layout.
Loading Using RF in Advanced Shipping and Receiving
The integration between Transportation Management and Warehouse Management is called Advanced Shipping and Receiving (ASR) and has been delivered for the first time with the 2208 release. This has been followed up in the 2302 release with a loading process, using the app Load or Unload Freight Orders that is designed for a desktop computer. Now, you can load goods by scanning the relevant outbound delivery order, freight order, or warehouse door using a mobile radio frequency (RF) device. As loading is performed directly on the shopfloor, there is a high demand to perform this step on a mobile device.
USER EXPERIENCE
New Fiori App “Advanced Shipping and Receiving Cockpit”
The app Advanced Shipping and Receiving Cockpit is a further addition to ASR which we are happy to introduce with the 2308 release. This app offers to monitor multiple freight orders and loading points for a specific warehouse. Thereby, warehouse staff can get a holistic view on the relevant freight orders for a certain time period at one glance, enabling them to improve the planning for the scheduled freight orders. There is a navigation available to the app Load or Unload Freight Orders, in order to perform actions such as docking a freight order to a certain door.
Improvements to Fiori App “Manage Outbound Delivery Orders”
The Manage Outbound Delivery Orders app has been released with 2302 and has now received some significant improvements. The are in my view three major improvements that I want to highlight:
EXTENSIBILITY
Unique Button ID in RF for Screen Personas
Already for some releases it is possible to enhance RF screens with Screen Personas as described in this guide. However, there had been a limitation that the buttons cannot be distinguished based on the current screen. If a certain button was adapted, it was adapted for every screen. Now, a unique button ID based on the button’s semantic meaning is enabled. In below example, the button Back would be displayed in light green for every screen, irrespective of the button’s position.
Other Extensibility Highlights
Aside from the unique button ID, the following extensibility options were also made available:
FIND OUT MORE!
There are a more enhancements to discover in this release and I encourage you to find out more through the “What's new presentation”.
In this latest Cloud release we delivered a wide range of improvements to outbound processes including wave management, automatic packing and loading by RF. We also put an emphasis on improving the user experience by adding new features to the app Manage Outbound Delivery Orders as well as offering a new app called Advanced Shipping & Receiving Cockpit. Additionally, we offer more extensibility options so customers can further tailor the system to their requirements.
Below we will provide a few of the key highlights of the new release, starting with a highlight for outbound processing.
CORE FUNCTION
Wave Management
With wave management you can combine outbound delivery order items into waves to then create picking warehouse tasks across all items by releasing the wave.
As a first step, wave templates need to be created to define different business scenarios for waves such as export shipments or domestic shipments. For each wave template further attributes can be specified: Time settings such as the cutoff time can be defined as well as a capacity profile to define the maximum volume or weight for a wave. Thereby the system can determine which outbound delivery order items may be added to a certain wave, making sure not to exceed the cutoff time or any capacity settings.
Define Wave Templates
When the wave templates have been defined, the wave creation can be started using the app Schedule Wave Creation. With this app, different parameters such as route, staging area or ship-to party are available as selection criteria for the outbound delivery order items that shall be added to the same wave. There are also parameters available to influence the wave creation such as the wave template.
Schedule Wave Creation
Once the waves have been created, they are ready for further processing in the Warehouse Monitor. There are various actions available, the most important one being the release of the wave which will lead to the warehouse task creation for all outbound delivery order items within the wave. The warehouse order creation framework can then build optimized warehouse orders, due to the large amount of warehouse tasks created at the same time.
Warehouse Monitor
As this “wave” of warehouse tasks breaks on the warehouse, the actual picking can start.
Automatic Packing in Outbound Work Center
Certain products are always packed the same way – either in general or specific to certain customers. For such scenarios it is quite cumbersome for the warehouse operative to manually record the packing in the system as this can feel like unnecessary, additional, and repetitive effort. We have therefore enabled a new feature that allows to automatically create handling units (HUs) based on packing instructions, including HU hierarchies, in the Pack Handling Units - Advanced and the Work Center Packing for Outbound Delivery apps. The availability of this feature can be configured per work center layout.
Pack Handling Units - Advanced
Loading Using RF in Advanced Shipping and Receiving
The integration between Transportation Management and Warehouse Management is called Advanced Shipping and Receiving (ASR) and has been delivered for the first time with the 2208 release. This has been followed up in the 2302 release with a loading process, using the app Load or Unload Freight Orders that is designed for a desktop computer. Now, you can load goods by scanning the relevant outbound delivery order, freight order, or warehouse door using a mobile radio frequency (RF) device. As loading is performed directly on the shopfloor, there is a high demand to perform this step on a mobile device.
EWM_MOBGUI: Loading transactions
USER EXPERIENCE
New Fiori App “Advanced Shipping and Receiving Cockpit”
The app Advanced Shipping and Receiving Cockpit is a further addition to ASR which we are happy to introduce with the 2308 release. This app offers to monitor multiple freight orders and loading points for a specific warehouse. Thereby, warehouse staff can get a holistic view on the relevant freight orders for a certain time period at one glance, enabling them to improve the planning for the scheduled freight orders. There is a navigation available to the app Load or Unload Freight Orders, in order to perform actions such as docking a freight order to a certain door.
Advanced Shipping and Receiving Cockpit
Improvements to Fiori App “Manage Outbound Delivery Orders”
The Manage Outbound Delivery Orders app has been released with 2302 and has now received some significant improvements. The are in my view three major improvements that I want to highlight:
- The edit mode which enables the user to change fields on header and item level.
- The app now also supports serial numbers which can be displayed or also changed for products with serial number requirement on document item level.
- Developer extensibility allows to determine or validate custom fields with the now released RAP object Outbound Delivery Order Header
Manage Outbound Delivery Orders
EXTENSIBILITY
Unique Button ID in RF for Screen Personas
Already for some releases it is possible to enhance RF screens with Screen Personas as described in this guide. However, there had been a limitation that the buttons cannot be distinguished based on the current screen. If a certain button was adapted, it was adapted for every screen. Now, a unique button ID based on the button’s semantic meaning is enabled. In below example, the button Back would be displayed in light green for every screen, irrespective of the button’s position.
EWM_MOBGUI
Other Extensibility Highlights
Aside from the unique button ID, the following extensibility options were also made available:
- The Warehouse Product API has been released as part of the Product API, allowing to create, read update and delete the warehouse product.
- The following OData APIs have received new fields or actions:
- Handling Unit API
- Warehouse Order and Task API
- Warehouse Available Stock API
- Further CDS Views have been released for developer extensibility in the area of inbound delivery, outbound delivery, warehouse order and warehouse task.
FIND OUT MORE!
There are a more enhancements to discover in this release and I encourage you to find out more through the “What's new presentation”.
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