Warehouse Management (WM) software is deployed in many business environments and industries – from simple warehouses for raw materials to complex, high-volume, and automatic distribution facilities.
It’s widely adopted and
forms the backbone of the logistics and supply chain industry.
But it has been around
for 25 years. Not only has technology changed dramatically in that time, but
the digitally disrupted world in which we now live and work bears little
resemblance to operations in the early nineties. This altered landscape
needs a new modus operandi.
Step forward SAP Extended Warehouse Management, or SAP EWM. The name itself is perhaps a
misnomer; far from being an extension or add-on to what was previously
available, EWM has been designed from the bottom up and reflects that supply
chain management (SCM) is increasingly regarded as a science, such as the vital role it plays in almost every business operation.
EWM may be a high-speed system that creates the most warehouse-related tasks easier and more efficient. It can be configured to the specific needs of each organization and deployed over several locations.
Benefits of SAP EWM |
Let’s look at what this
means in practice.
Task management
A previous blog post checked out EWM’s sophisticated picking processes, but it’s worth reiterating because they need to cause a warehouse transformation.
Imagine a timelapse video of the quality warehouse as pickers set about their daily activity. The same person will be seen going to the same stock bin several times during the day while crossing paths with other pickers, and retracing their steps on many occasions. Seen in fast forward it’s clearly not an efficient way to work, but it is dictated because WM shows all the orders that need to be picked for on one day as a block of work that is difficult to break down. (While this will be resolved with additional middleware, this results in extra costs, plus potential integration issues.)
In contrast, EWM uses
algorithms to figure out the foremost efficient thanks to complete as many
tasks as possible; pickers are allocated one area of the warehouse and only undertake
activities in that section. This eliminates the sight of warehouse staff
constantly treading the same path as they each pick for the individual task for
which they are responsible.
Resource management
EWM needs minimal integration with the rear office; on completion of a task, pickers are automatically fed subsequent one, allowing them to specialize in the work, instead of continually refer back for their next activity.
It’s not hard to see how this adds up to significant efficiency savings over the course of a week, a month, a year. Simply changing the system can potentially increase the number of picks completed by 20%.
Warehouse operators can
also take advantage of EWM’s powerful analytics to monitor activity in
real-time. This opens up the opportunity to resolve any issues as they occur,
as well as pay bonuses for tasks completed to drive a further increase in the a
number of deliveries they are able to fulfill.
Rapid scanning
Further time savings are up for grabs when it involves selecting items from the stock bin.
Typically warehouse
systems are set to require several scans (such as barcode, product label, and
bin location) for each product as it is selected. But some items may only need
one of these readings – any additional scans take more time, the significance
of which becomes clear when one considers there maybe 160,000 picks a day.
Enhanced frequency (RF) capabilities in EWM make it easy for warehouse
operators to change the system settings to need just one scan.
Cost calculations
Warehouse production
processes often need to change temporarily. For example, a retailer might
change the price on a particular product for a limited period, which requires
new price stickers to be placed on every item. While the WM can organize the work,
it is not set up to do so, and the functionality is limited. EWM however both
enables the activity and calculates the cost of the additional resource
required to undertake it; this allows the distributor to bill the retailer
accordingly.
Stock speed
Fast, slow, and
medium-moving stock is processed with EWM’s slotting and rearrangement
facility. For example, on 25 December many items that have, within the run-up
to Christmas, been classed as fast-moving change overnight to the slow
category. Highlighting them in the EWM results in the system automatically
making the decision on what to do with these products and feeding this into the
labor-management module. (With WM manual tasks need to be created to handle
this activity.)
No middleware required
EWM is a complete
system that enables organizations to operate state-of-the-art warehouses
without the need for middleware. This simplifies operations and results in cost
savings because additional applications don’t need to be bought and installed
separately. For example, Material Flow System & tools (the
benefits of which we’ve covered in a previous blog) are embedded in SAP EWM. These control automation and supply full warehouse visibility so processes are
often dynamically streamlined and optimized.
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