Excellence in Inventory Management using SAP Web Console

Inventory Management is one of the key drivers that organisations today realize is essential to not only attain speed in delivering goods to customer but also presents an area where operational costs can be further reduced using innovative use of technology.

The increase in order placements using internet technologies have put the pressure on the serving organizations to incorporate the automation in their business processes to meet the demand quickly and in most cost effective manner. This not only goes a long way in retaining customers but also helps to maintain and retain the competitive advantage in the ever changing market place.

This case study illustrate the management & automation of inventory processes using SAP Web console that were used to meet the challenges of shipping a very high sales order volume (approx 5000 per day) from their distribution centers, to perform the receipts from internal and external organizations and streamlining the internal inventory processes to perform and operate with minimum workforce but with increased efficiency. The company had decided to implement SAP R/3 version 4.7 and key challenge was to automate warehousing operations without using SAP-Warehouse Mangement.

This article will help Consultants & Project Managers alike to gain insight into the usage of SAP Web Console for warehouse operations and would be useful in designing of solutions that aims to achieve operational efficiency and reduction in the operating costs. It also highlights on how to implement SAP Web Console without the implementation of SAP-Warehouse management module.

Understanding SAP Web console

SAP provides SAP Web Console as one the option to connect mobile Radio Frequency (RF) devices to SAP R/3 system. The SAP Web Console comes together with SAP R/3 system. It is standards based which in turn provides the flexibility to connect vendor independent RF hand held mobile entry devices (also commonly called “Scanners”) to SAP system.

SAP Web Console makes use of Web technology to present the same SAP GUI (graphical user interface) “look & feel” screen on the hand held RF device. It consists of following main components:

• Hand held Scanner RF Device (running MS Pocket PC)
• Wireless Access Points System (WLAN) in the environment where it is to be operated (e.g. Warehouse)
• SAP Web Console Server running SAP Web Console Software through which connection to SAP R/3 backend system is established

The user would invoke a web link through the Internet explorer on the hand held scanner device. This connects to SAP system through SAP Web Console server. It would present a SAP logon screen (size adjusted) on the hand held device wherein the user id and password is entered in the same as one would log on to SAP R/3 from the laptop/desktop.

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