HU Creation at the planning time

[Former Member]

Hello Expert

I need your advice and your support regarding the following requirement:

During the preparation of the production planning, the planner creates the data related to the pallets Labels “Handling Unit Creation” in advance

The HU to be created in advance shall contain the following data

• Production Order
• Material,
• Batch,
• The quantity to be produced per HU and essentially
• the Storage Bin

Please note that this HU after the end of production will be confirmed and transported to the warehouse

Your advice plz to how manage such situation

Regards

Olfa

[mihailo_sundic]

Why would you want to specify storage bin in advance?
What is customers requirement exactly, maybe we can propose a better and standard solution for this.

You can create HU in advance, by using HU02, but you can't specify all those details you require, not without custom development of some kind.

The most logical thing to do is create storage units / handling units during goods receipt.
That's standard SAP.

SAP in this case determines the destination storage bin based on your strategy, available capacity at the time of receipt, and many other factors like bin block etc.

So it would be best to tell us what is the actual business process requirement so that we can provide you with a standard solution that could suit your clients needs.

Regards,
Mihailo

[Former Member]

Thanks Manish and thanks Mihailo,

I already vist the site and I got some informations: please see attachement

[mihailo_sundic]

Hi Olfa,

Steps from 1 to 6 can be done automatically by the system but NOT in the order your client is requesting.
And it doesn't make sense doing that in the order specified in the document.
Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture but I doubt that any natural process would require starting from the last step and moving towards the first one, shuffling the steps in between.

I think that you need to explain your client that this is (pretty much) completely non-standard and is not in the spirit of best WM practice.

So what I would do, despite their thoughts how their process should work, propose the natural way the things should go and process flow in SAP EM.
If they however insist on the process flow stated in the document, then a lot of custom developments must be made to make it work like that.

I doubt that anyone needs this kind of process flow, but in case their business is so specific and need to map the processes like stated in the doc, well it's gonna be a lot of work to make it work like that...

[joao_sousa2]

Hello,

Like several people have said, unless there is a very specific requirement that we are not getting, the process doesn't make sense and goes against WM best practices.

Why does the Warehouse Manager have to assign manually the HU to a Storage Bin BEFORE production run? That is very inefficient, and not how WM is supposed to work.

[Former Member]

Thanks a lot for your support

Just I need to classify these points :

Covered by standard,

Need a customizing and

Required a specific development

Regards

[mihailo_sundic]

1. Custom development if you want this to be in SAP
2. Planner sends it via mail, SAP or any other method? If via SAP, then custom development
3. Again, custom development
4. Standard, he can check it in transaction LS03N or any other (LX01,LX03 etc.) if storage bin is available, for the second part custom development related to items 1. 2. And 3.
5. Standard SAP
6. Partly standard, partly development, will need to use user exit during TO creation and confirmation
7. OK... standard pallets confirmed immediately no additional printing.
8. First item – print new label with new assigned bin, would require a user-exit most probably
Second item – Manual transfer to the new bin by LT10 or LT01 transaction - standard
9. Direct procurement to production supply area, can be accomplished with the use of cross-docking, but requires a bit of customizing.

[MANIS]

Hi Olfa,

Standard is not having solution hence you can plan for custom where u can supply the detail on screen and system will pick the HU number internally and generate a label with all the infomation supplied on screen

However this is not a recommended approach as warehouse is all about speed & accuracy and by adopting this approach you are going to make the overall warehouse operation more complex.

Few pros and cons of this process.

if you have a preprinted label then somebody have to paste that manually on the pallet also he need to make sure that he is pasting the label on the right pallet

Another issue is you have printed information regard the quantity (last pallet of any batch will have less then a pallet load, so i am not sure how are you going to generate the label before production with right quantity

Regard the destination bin as a result of production receipt system transfer the stock to intermediate storage type 901 and from where you do the bin to bin transfer to the warehouse. system propose the destination bin based on the search strategy so again i am while generating the HU label i am not sure how this information is available

Assume that if all the above steps works fine and u r able to form a FG pallet at Production line side during putaway if user goes to the physical bin location to drop the pallet he found that some pallet is already there and in the system the existing pallet should be there. In that case you need to again regenerate the label with right bin location

Overall level this is not a recommended approach, in my opinion you can have printed label with HU number only but other information on the label is going to make the warehouse operation more complex

[Former Member]

Many thanks  Manish for your advices

In that case I need a Questionnaire for SAP WM blue print preperation.These questions will help me to analyze and map the requirements and prepare blue print for warehouse management system.

Could you please support me

Regards

Olfa

[MANIS]

Hi Olfa,

I don't have any ready made questionnaire and moreover it depend on the industry and the type of warehouse (Inbound warehouse / Outbound warehouse) at very high level i can suggest

1) Plan a warehouse visit (Understand the physical layout of warehouse check for any change in layout which needs to be considered) This will help you to define the master data in terms of storage location  storage type / Storage section/ Picking area/ Doors/ Storage bin type)

2) Understand the Goods receipt and Goods issue process. it is always advisable to talk to the warehouse worker who can point out the complexity / pain area and the steps which takes lot of time during picking or putaway

3) Have a look on the physical structure of storage space this will help to decide strategy (e.g. C-Open,  B-Bulk, L- next empty bin)

4) Check whether they want to automate the process using mobile device or paper based

The list can go longer however you can start with this and if any further input is required please post your query on the forum we are always there to help.