Using SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM)

to support high volume logistics in e-commerce

Hans Jrgen van Rijnbach, Komplett Group

Bjrn A. Flatby, Senior SCM consultant, Ciber

Who are we?

Brief about us

Komplett is a leading e-commerce player with

focus on selling products and services on the
internet

Founded in 1991, started working with ecommerce in 1996

10 webshops in Scandinavia

Main office and warehouse in Sandefjord,

Norway

Local offices in Gothenburg and Copenhagen

430 employees

2011 revenue MNOK 4 100

16 000 different products in stock

Build your own PC

LARGEST IN SCANDINAVIA
30 000 PCs were manufactured in 2011

First with new technology

High flexibility regarding choice of config.
Short delivery time = 1 - 3 days
The best returns scheme in the world
Repairs within 3 4 days
3 year guarantee

 In 2011 we fulfilled 1.454 .776 customer orders, with a total of

4.547.226 products

In average one customer order fulfilled in 21 sec, 24/7/365

Peak hour: one order fulfilled every 1.9 sec

Logistics operations and application support

Appliction architechture at Komplett

PLC

Autostore: the main engine

34 000
bins

55 robots

16 bin
layers

Show demo

Customer order consolidation done by forwarder,

not in warehouse
Warehouse 1

Warehouse 2
Pre packed

Autostore

Sorting to carrier / route

NY ORDREFLYT

The project: why and how?

The need for change, and the risk

Former WMS was developed - step by step - over 10 years
Legacy system, tailor made to our specifications
Narrow frame and key competence on very few hands, giving
increased operational risk, as Komplett s business were expanding

Decided to implement SAP EWM

even if few other customers were live
and even if impl.partner Ciber had no real EWM experience
In other words: not a risk free project..
Project internally referred to as an In-flight engine swop

Risk mitigation: phased implementation

Large products,
separate
warehouse area

Design

Mid size products,

separate
warehouse area

Phase 1: Manual
warehouse processes,
no PLC-integration
Phase 2: Automated
warehouse, PLCintegration

Small products, in
Autostore

Phase 3: EWM integrated

with Autostore

Q1

Q2

Q3

2010

Q4

Q1

Q2

Q3

2011

Risk mitigation: running two WMS against same ERP

At the same time driving complexity in integration
WEB SHOPs

SAP ERP

SAP EWM

Old WMS

MFS

Qubiqa PLC
(sorter)

Warehouse 2+3

ITO PLC
(sorter)

AutoStore
Warehouse 1

Risk mitigation: building strong internal competence

We must understand and master our key business processes
Day to day operations must be executed and supported by own staff
Involve key personnel all the way

Evaluation
Decision
Planning
Implementation
Testing and fixing
Operation and support

Ownership and proudness: This is my baby

Consultants come and leave competence has to be built and stay

How did it work out?

Warehouse productivity 2007 to 2011

No of order lines fulfilled / man hours (included management, testing and education)
Numbers taken from KPI-report
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
jul. sep. nov. jan. mar. mai. jul. sep. nov. jan. mar. mai. jul. sep. nov. jan. mar. mai. jul. sep. nov. jan. mar. mai. jul. sep. nov. jan. mar. mai. jul.
07 07 07 08 08 08 08 08 08 09 09 09 09 09 09 10 10 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 12

Go-live Autostore
Komplett K4

Komplett K4 and K5/1

TCG K5/2

Migrating to shared
systems and
warehousees

Go-live SAP EWM

Tuning and improvements

Focus on productivity
Focus on servicelevel

Step-by-step improvements close cooperation between inhouse

SAP-team and warehouse management
Stabile systems operation monitoring, maintenance and support
Patching of SAP-installation once every year

Issues will pop up time to competence is key.

About EWM

What is SAP EWM, what does it compare to?

Can be compared to systems from Witron, Swisslog and Astron
Flexibility and richness in functionality, such as:

Wave management
Slotting/Rearrangement
Resource- and Labour Management
Cross Docking
Yard Management
Warehouse Monitor
Serial Number at Bin Level
Detailed information about warehouse processes

Has scalability and performance (separated from SAP ERP)

Standard integration to SAP ERP, TM, APO, GTS etc.
Has built in Warehouse Control System: Material Flow System, for
integration to conveyors, scanners, printers, automatic storage and
retrieval systems (PLCs) etc.

Communication EWM - ERP

EWMs Material Flow System what is it?

Example: telegrams involved in simple chute destination determination

Life Telegram

Scanner Telegram

15 millisec.

Task Telegram

70 millisec.

Task confirmation
telegram

15 millisec.

Warehouse structure
Start with defining the
physical structure of the
warehouse
Storage type
High-rack storage
area, bulk storage
area, picking storage
area + +
Storage section
Bins with common
attributes (fast
movers + + )
Storage bin
Quant
Inventory of bins

Activity Areas
Groups storage bins together with regard to specific
warehouse activity (put away, picking and physical
inventory).
Can be created automatically by EWM or manually

Activity Areas at Komplett

Example of AA s at one of the manual picking locations

Important document types

Inbound Deliveries
Outbound Deliveries
Warehouse Tasks
Document that uses EWM to execute goods movements
Picks
Putaways
Internal goods movements
Posting changes
Goods receipt postings
Goods issue postings
Warehouse Orders
Collection of warehouse tasks

Warehouse Orders and Tasks

A selection of important warehouse processes

supported by SAP EWM

Put away
Inbound deliveries are sent the ERP system to EWM
Warehouse tasks are created based upon
Data on inbound delivery
Master data on product (controls destination area)
EWM (will find the best storage bin)
As little as possible is placed in picking bins
Open sales orders are used to prioritize GR to
picking locations
All put away processes are based upon HU s
Goods are available for picking as soon as they are
placed in their destination bin

Manual picking
Each delivery will have at least one Warehouse Order
Warehouse supervisor distributes pickers to AA s with
high demand based upon data in the warehouse monitor
Pickers logs on to queue
AA s reflects the aisle
Wireless PDA used to process the warehouse orders
Each picker has a wireless printer
No need to run back and forth to fetch print
Everything is picked onto a handling unit
Consolidation performed at designated areas
Separate PLC chutes for consolidation orders

An example of the flexibility in EWM

Normal deliveries are always picked separately
One warehouse order contains tasks from only one
delivery
PC orders are however picked together
One warehouse order represents up to 6 outbound
deliveries
The different orders must not be mixed up!
The orders are seperated by unique internal HU s

PC-production
One of Komplett s most complex picking processes
A PC order will contain goods from all areas in the
warehouse
Up to six PC s are picked together
The orders must be picked in a specific sequence
Components used in production are picked first
AS post production goods are released for picking after
the PC production has finished
PC and post AS production items are consolidated
Release of prepacked goods
Not consolidated

Work centers

Physical units in the warehouse

Packing
Unpacking
(De) consolidation
Quality inspection

Workload Manager not standard!

Customer specific program originally developed to feed
AS with warehouse tasks
End result was a program which controls the release of
all pick WO s
A tool used to control the workload and ensure that the
correct deliveries are picked at the desired time
Prioritation logic based upon wave types (gathering of
specific WO s)
Gives Komplett the possibility to control the buffer
size of pickable WO s in different AA s
Ensures that deliveries are not picked until all tasks
have been created
Critical part of Komplett s warehouse operations

Workload Manager
Buffer levels are registered as watermarks (high and
low) in a master data table for each AA and WOCR

Autostore overview
Autostore is feeded with tasks by EWM
WLM decides how many tasks will be feeded into AS
Continuous synchronization between EWM and AS to
ensure that picking tasks have the correct status
XML interface between EWM and AS
Users logs on to picking application, does no SAP
interface is used
Automated packing material determination based upon
EWM standard
Conveyor lane determination based on packing material
Automatic counting of empty AS bins

ASAPP (Autostore application)

Developed in Adobe Air by Ciber
Different views based upon the AS task you would like to
process

Autostore simulator

Very good emulation tool

Enables efficient and reliable testing of all processes
A success factor for the go-live
Simplified the testing of Autostore processes

When to consider EWM?

High transaction volumes
Complex Warehouse Requirements
Large warehouses/distribution centers with high volume and
velocity
Integration to PLCs (conveyors, Autostore, sorter scanners,
printers etc)
Several stock owners
3p warehouse, and several ERP against one WMS
Requirements to track serial numbers on bin level

Lessons learned general

Alliances necessary when products are new
Very good cooperation with SAP Germany
try with a little help from your friends..

Risks can be reduced, not eliminated

go ahead

Strong company culture underestimated benefit

when the going gets tough..

And the classic:

never underestimate printer problems!

Lessons learned technical

Output determination was complicated different from
ERP
If the project team does not have experience with the PPF
framework a course might be a good idea

Difficult to meet MFS requirements

Easy to set up initial integration between SAP ECC and
EWM
CIF interface is not very good with large amounts of data
Komplett has over two million customers

Lessons learned technical

Error handling on CIF interfaces requires technical knowhow
If possible avoid using batch management and serial number
registration
Warehouse processes will be more complicated
More errors, reduced flexibility

Test development objects on live and high volume data

Be careful when choosing pilot products

Strengths
There are Badi s for every known and unkown need
High degree of flexibility makes it possible to realize advanced
business processes

Flexible classification of the warehouse into activity areas

Easy to configure the integration between SAP ECC and EWM
(very little need for development)
Works more or less out of the box

Integration with PLC s

Packing material determination based on product dimensions
High degree of information available through logs and monitors
Very good accessibility on experts from SAP when necessary

Questions?