Published on August 21, 2019 – Steffen Strüber, SAP EWM Consultant at Westernacher
Continue to use your existing warehouse management solution or switch to EWM now?
An existing Warehouse Management (WM) installation can still be used by existing customers. SAP announced this in its blog article (June 2019) about “SAP S/4HANA Stock Room Management”. Due to the significantly reduced scope of functions, however, this installation is only worthwhile for small warehouses or storage rooms. Moreover, unlike EWM (Extended Warehouse Management), there will be no further developments for Stock Room Management. Despite the limitations, there are reasonable options for the use of Stock Room Management.
From a technical point of view, Stock Room Management is an LE-WM and should first be delivered with the release SAP S/4HANA 1909. This means that you should be able to continue using your own developments under Stock Room Management, provided they only access WM components that are available in Stock Room Management. Unlike WM, Stock Room Management does not support Task & Resource Management (WM-TRM), Warehouse Control Unit interface (WM-LSR), Value Added Service (WM-VAS), Yard Management (WM-YM), Cross-Docking (WM-CD), Wave Management (WM-TFM-CP), or Decentralized WM (WM-DWM). In addition, there will be no further developments or Fiori Apps for Stock Room Management. This means that companies will not benefit from new functionalities.
Due to these limitations, Stock Room Management provides a solution for companies that
- use very rudimentary WM functionalities,
- do not gain any advantages from the transition to EWM and
- are not interested in innovations.
For all other companies, Stock Room Management is not a sensible, long-term solution. Here it makes more sense to rely on EWM as warehouse management software. Then users can benefit from the greater functional scope of EWM and the new developments for this. In addition, the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management license includes the use of EWM with the basic functionalities, as well as the use of Stock Room Management.
In contrast to Stock Room Management or WM, EWM has flexible process and layout control, which enable dynamic adaptation of the system processes to the real processes. In addition, EWM offers extended functions for mobile devices and improved shaft control, production and transport integration. EWM can also act as a material flow computer and communicate directly with the conveyor system.
However, Stock Room Management can be an interesting strategic component in the changeover from WM to EWM. A detailed analysis of the business processes can be used to recommend whether all warehouses must be converted by the end of 2025, or whether part of the warehouse can also be converted afterwards by temporarily using Stock Room Management. This helps to relax the roadmap for the switch to S/4HANA at critical points.
For further information on the transition from WM to EWM, please contact our experts in person.
Share this article
