Share this article
Follow us on Linkedin
For many organizations, the road to operational excellence begins in the warehouse. As supply chains become more complex and customer expectations rise, warehouse operations must evolve — often faster than the business around them. Moving to SAP S/4HANA and implementing SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) is one of the most impactful ways to modernize, standardize, and future‑proof supply chain execution.
But with complexity comes uncertainty.
Where should companies begin? Which tools accelerate the transformation? How do you ensure a smooth transition with no business disruption?
In this article, we explore key steps and tools that help organizations kick start and structure their EWM transformation effectively — insights we will expand on in our upcoming webinar.
Why the journey matters now.
Companies are increasingly confronted with:
- Managing multiple, distributed warehouses
- Aging or highly customized legacy WMS
- The strategic shift toward S/4HANA
- The pressure to increase efficiency and remain competitive
- The need to ensure no operational downtime during transformation
A structured, data‑driven approach is essential. And this is where Westernacher Consulting, with 30+ years of warehouse management expertise and over 300 EWM projects delivered, provides a robust foundation for transformation success.
Where to start: Building a clear vision.
Every successful SAP EWM project begins long before system configuration. The first milestone is clarity:
- What are the current processes?
- Which pain points exist today?
- Where are the largest improvement potentials?
- How can we ensure the future solution is scalable and standardized?
This is the purpose of the Discover Phase in SAP Activate — SAP’s implementation methodology that guides customers through each step of the journey, from vision to go‑live.
SAP Activate as the blueprint for success.
SAP Activate provides a structured, iterative, and business oriented approach to SAP EWM implementation:
In practice, this means:
Discover phase: Understand the status quo.
A fact‑based analysis of the current environment:
- End-to-end process documentation
- System analysis: data, configurations, transaction usage
- Identification of bottlenecks and improvement areas
- Alignment of project scope and transformation goals
This phase sets the tone for the project and ensures stakeholders share the same understanding of what needs to change.
Prepare & explore: Blueprinting the future.
Validate industry best practices, explore SAP EWM capabilities, and define the future process landscape.
Realize, deploy & run: Bringing the solution to life.
Implement, test, train, migrate, go-live — and continuously improve.
The right tools: Why SAP Signavio is a game changer.
One of the most powerful accelerators in the early stages of an EWM project is SAP Signavio.
Signavio helps you visualize, analyze, and improve your processes with:
Business Process Modelling (BPMN 2.0).
Clear and consistent documentation of all warehouse and cross-functional processes.
Fact-based AS-IS Process Maps.
Automatically generated from real system usage — eliminating guesswork.
Advanced Process Intelligence.
Identifying bottlenecks, rework loops, waiting times, and compliance gaps.
Best practice content and value accelerators.
Standard SAP processes to compare, benchmark, and accelerate design.
Continuous monitoring.
Dashboards and KPIs to keep track of improvements after go-live.
Compared to traditional tools like Visio, Signavio provides:
- A fully cloud-native environment
- A collaborative workspace for all stakeholders
- Integration with the SAP Transformation Suite
- A structured repository as the Single Source of Truth
As one customer told us: “Data takes emotions out of the conversation.”
This is exactly what Signavio enables.
Ensuring a bulletproof start.
Before diving into design workshops or system configuration, organizations must ensure:
- Processes, systems, and data are understood
- Best practice content is leveraged
- Improvement areas are identified early
- The transformation roadmap is validated
- Processes are simplified and standardized
This clarity reduces project risk, accelerates decision-making, and ensures that SAP EWM is implemented not as a technical upgrade — but as a strategic enhancement of warehouse operations.
Join our webinar – Let’s explore the journey together.
This article provides a high-level overview of the warehouse transformation journey. In our upcoming webinar, we will go deeper into:
- Real-world examples from SAP EWM projects
- How Signavio accelerates S/4HANA preparation
- A practical walkthrough of the SAP Activate phases
- Common pitfalls — and how to avoid them
- How Westernacher supports companies from discovery to go-live
If you’re considering SAP EWM on S/4HANA or in the early stages of planning your transformation, this session will provide a clear and actionable starting point.
