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Industry
Food & Beverage (Snack Manufacturing)
Key Technology:
SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM)
A leading snack manufacturer improved shelf-life compliance, stabilized outbound execution, and reduced aging stock with a targeted SAP EWM enhancement by Westernacher Consulting — boosting productivity and ensuring customer-level compliance.
The challenge: High complexity in managing shelf-life rules with SAP EWM.
In the food industry, shelf-life compliance is a critical performance driver. It impacts service levels, inventory rotation, dispatch stability, and the ability to meet customer commitments – especially when handling high outbound volumes and customer-specific requirements.
This one leading snack manufacturer faced increasing complexity in managing diverse shelf-life rules across its broad distribution network.
To regain control and ensure compliance, the company partnered with Westernacher Consulting to enhance SAP EWM and embed customer-specific logic into its outbound execution.
The profile of a major snack manufacturer.
Westernacher Consulting´s customer is a major snack manufacturer operating a large, fast-paced distribution center with stringent service expectations and shelf-life-sensitive product flows.
Key operational characteristics
- Daily dispatch of dozens of outbound trucks
- Thousands of case picks processed every day
- High-volume outbound flows across multiple snack categories
- Strict customer‑specific shelf-life rules across the distribution network
Inventory accuracy, precise stock selection, and disciplined rotation are essential to maintaining their service promise.
Business Challenges.
The warehouse operation faced a level of shelf-life complexity far beyond standard batch selection logic. Outbound decisions had to consider:
- Customer-specific shelf-life minimums
- Product hierarchy dependencies
- Remaining shelf-life thresholds
- Storage conditions
- Rotation rules to prevent later deliveries from having shorter shelf life
- High-frequency allocation decisions throughout the day
Standard SAP EWM configuration could not manage these variables simultaneously. As volumes grew, the operation experienced:
- Inconsistent fulfillment of customer shelf-life requirements
- Incorrect batch and pallet selection
- Reactive replenishment driven by exceptions
- Delays due to unsuitable stock in the pick face
- Increased manual checks and interventions
- Inefficient use of pick-face space
- Higher labor effort and exception handling
- Declining outbound stability and inventory quality
Shelf-life compliance had become both a warehouse bottleneck and a service risk.
How to enhance SAP EWM evaluating shelf-life compliance earlier.
Westernacher Consulting enhanced SAP EWM to evaluate shelf-life compliance earlier in the process – already during allocation and wave release – instead of relying solely on late-stage batch selection.
Key capabilities implemented
- Customer-specific shelf-life rules applied at wave release
- Evaluation of multiple shelf-life criteria in parallel
- Automatic exclusion of non-compliant stock
- Improved alignment between rotation discipline and customer requirements
- Rule-driven logic combining ERP and warehouse data as a single decision framework
The result: a robust, automated way to manage complex shelf-life requirements at scale, without slowing down operations or adding manual checks.
What was Westernacher Consulting´s project focus?
Working closely with the customer, Westernacher translated complex business rules into a practical, stable SAP EWM solution.
Project focus areas
- Identifying root causes of shelf-life compliance gaps
- Converting customer-specific rules into a workable, scalable logic
- Enhancing SAP EWM without disrupting core processes
- Embedding compliance checks directly into allocation and wave release
- Strengthening inventory rotation and outbound execution
The goal was not only to build logic that works in SAP – but to make it reliably executable in a high-volume warehouse where speed and stability matter.
What are the business results?
The implementation delivered measurable improvements across warehouse efficiency, inventory performance, and service reliability.
Warehouse Efficiency
20–30%
increase in picking productivity
40–50%
improvement in pick-face space utilization
Faster
more predictable picking and dispatch
Inventory Performance
Aging stock reduced from 30% to 10%
Stronger inventory rotation discipline
Lower risk of obsolescence
Operational Control
- Significant reduction in manual checks
- Fewer exceptions and interventions
- More stable replenishment execution
Service Performance
- Higher delivery accuracy
- Consistent fulfillment of customer-specific shelf-life requirements
- Improved outbound reliability
Conclusion.
With Westernacher Consulting’s support, shelf-life compliance for this one leading snack manufacturer shifted from a manual exception process to a central, automated, scalable capability in SAP EWM.
A stable, efficient, and compliance-driven outbound process now supports their long-term service excellence.
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