April 19, 2009, 9:00 AM — 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. On successful login, the Menu (Custom or standard, based on the solution design) for inventory operations is presented to perform the identified transactions.
Requirements & Solution Design
Business Case Summary: The business requirement was to increase efficiency for the day to day inventory operations in the distribution and manufacturing sites. Manufacturing sites have to ship large volume of finished goods to distribution centers to meet the end customer demand. The following areas were identified:
- Inbound Receipts
- Cycle Counting process
- Inventory transactions
- Outbound Shipping
Business Challenges:
- Manage efficiently high volume of transactions (Inbound, Outbound and Internal Inventory transactions)
- Manpower Constraint: The warehouse should be able to operate with minimum staff and thus the transactional load from the business process should require least or no manual intervention.
Solution Design: Based on the requirement analysis, the following solution was proposed and subsequently implemented:
Use of SAP Web Console and handheld RF devices to achieve high transaction velocity
The mobile data entry devices will perform identified business transactions with direct link to SAP System through use of SAP Web Console.
Streamline Business processes
Include and review the business processess that needs to be automated and will be performed through use of mobile data entry devices. Processes might need to be eliminated or clubbed in one with identified variations that can be handled programmatically.
Inbound Receipts:
a) From External Vendor: It required additional information on the product label from the supplying vendor. The information was company’s purchase order to vendor, material, quantity and batch number.
b) From Internal Entities: The receipt of Handling Unit either all together or individually is to be performed by scanning the label on handling unit. The label will contain information about Pallet, Trays and Materials in the Handling Unit. Provision to exist to receive Handling Unit from entities that are on SAP system (in this case Handling Unit are in SAP) and from entities that are not yet on SAP system (in this case Handling Unit information is captured separately through a separate custom program).
Cycle Counting Processes:
Though there is no SAP WM implemented but the material is allocated to storage bin (process workaround) in the "Plant Data/Storage 1" view of material master. The cycle counting is to be performed periodically for each storage bin in the warehouse. Multiple materials with multiple batches would exist in a Storage bin. Rule was created that a material would exclusively belong to single storage bin.User would generate a Physical Inventory document through custom program and all material for the said bin will be blocked. The staffers in the warehouse will use the hand held devices to perform the count for the said physical inventory document.
Inventory transactions:
The regular internal inventory transactions (e.g. Goods Issue to Cost center, Scrapping, change in stock type, Transfer Posting within Plants and Storage locations) are enabled through custom program executed from mobile data entry devices. The additional fields like reason for movement, Cost center validations were provided based on the SAP movement type and business process steps for relevant transactions. The variations based on movement type were handled programmatically. Single program handled all the variations in this business process.
Outbound Shipping:
The Handling Unit single or mupltiple will be shipped out to distribution centers using RF scanners. The relevant transactions like Stock Transport Order, Outbound Delivery and subsequent Post Goods Issue are created in the background along with the packing list and commercial invoice. Previously, all these steps were required to be done manually.
Design Challenges
The following were the main design consideration to support the proposed solution:
- Functionality should fit in small screen of hand held device. No vertical & horizontal scrolling and manual entry to be done. This would save User`s time and eliminate manual intervention on hand held device where keyboard buttons are very small and are close to each other and it takes time to make a manual entry.
- The Errors or Success message should be flashed on the hand held scanner device on real time basis. For example, Warehouse functions are based on UPC data for the material where as SAP transactions are performed using SAP material master. Any error that contains material master number in SAP would require that the same be converted to corresponding UPC number when error is flashed on hand held device.
- The screen on the hand held devices are to be kept to absolute minimum. Only the absolutely required data is present on the screen. The rest of the data processing should be handled by the custom program.
- Screen Navigation to be automated by design of buttons on custom program screens. For example if the Handling Unit label is scanned the "Enter" is pressed automatically and Handling unit is validated with data in SAP R/3 system and if data validation is passed program moves to next step or screen on the hand held device. Automation of Button functions reduced manual intervention.
- Since Warehouses have huge physical spaces, the scanner device should be able to work from any part of the warehouse. A wireless access exercise/check was performed by external vendor to identify the placement of WLAN access points. The Scanner device uses WLAN connectivity to connect to SAP R/3 system through the SAP Web Console server.
Configuration and Development
The solution design involved the configuration and custom development in the SAP R/3 system. The salient points are as follows:
Configuration
The Mobile Data Entry feature of Logistics Execution functionality in SAP was configured to meet the design requirements. The following are the important configuration for working of RF devices (hand held scanners) using SAP Web Console :
- Configure Warehouse number: Creation of a dummy Warehouse number though the requirement was not to use SAP-Warehouse Management. The warehouse number is used to perform further configuration for the Mobile data entry devices and programs.
- Define Custom Menu and the Menu items using “Define Menu Management”: The custom menu and the menu item sequence are defined along with custom program transaction code. The custom menu is linked to the warehouse number defined in the previous step. This is the menu that will be displayed on the hand held device.
- Configure Enter function using “Define Enter Function”: This configuration controls the navigation of screens of the custom developed program on the hand held scanner device. Define the screen category for each of the custom program that will be used on the scanner device. In the next step, the screen category is linked to the enter function. Upto five sequences can be defined. For the custom program covered in this case study only one Enter function was defined which was also referenced in the corresponding custom program.
- Configure RF queue Management: In this configuration the link for the queue used by the RF device, the users (SAP User ids) and the corresponding custom menu that will be available on the hand held scanner device is maintained. Once the user logs in on the scanner device, the menu mentioned here is displayed. The menu has same GUI based “look & feel” as if one is accessing SAP system through desktop.
Development
Though SAP R/3 system comes with many RF enabled programs, custom program were developed for all the identified inventory transactions to suit the requirement and to meet the design challenges. The custom program design followed the following principles:
- A single higher level custom Menu was developed showing all the four Inventory transactions. User may select the relevant transaction through the radio button.
- The display of screen size of custom program on the hand held device was controlled by the custom program. Horizontal or vertical scrolling was eliminated through the program design.
- Since there was limited information on the screen, the main chunk of the transaction processing was automated in custom program by use of custom tables etc. The real time error or success message were also handled through the relevant custom program.
- The button functions like automatic enter and custom buttons like Next, Cancel, Back, Post that were used on the custom screens were handled via custom program.
- Flexibility to run the programs directly form SAP R/3 system (i.,e without RF device) as a contingency backup when scanner devices are not working or WLAN is down or having problems.
Benefits and Results
The Benefits & Results are summarized below:
- SAP Web Console can be used in physical warehouses without the need or requirement to implement SAP-Warehouse Management module
- Planning & Design of Solution using Web Console is the key to derive maximum benfits. Use of SAP Web Console provides speed to perform Inventory transactions and thus increases operational efficiency. There is no or very minimum manual intervention while executing transaction and this helps in maintaining data integrity. The custom program development is important to control and optimize screen design, automation of navigation through button function, enforcing data validation rules and the main load of transaction processing.
- SAP Web Console can sustain high volume of data load in single transaction: During the Inventory cycle count transaction, the count data for 2000 materials (different material and batch combination) was successfully handled before updation of the count results in physical inventory document.
- For the cases covered in this case study, the resultant time savings were 60 % in performing inventory transactions.
- Efficient Planning of Warehouse Resources: The warehouse resources can be better planned considering the time saving in transaction execution, reduction in manual work and effort spent on operational cross checking (for example, wrong materials found in the storage bin while performing cycle count).
- Efficiency in shipping out Goods to Distribution Centers & Customers: The Handling units are shipped out to the distribution centers in the system, the moment label is scanned and all the necessary transactions and print out (packing list & commercial invoice) are performed in the background. This brings speed to supply the finished goods to distribution centres and also provide flexibility to accommodate last minute shipping decisions.
Deepak Kumar is Principal Consultant in SAP Practice at Infosys Technologies Ltd. He has over 15 years of experience in Business, IT Consulting & SAP Projects. He can be reached at Deepak_Kumar02@infosys.com
