Early Updates’ with packing information in TM – EWM Integration with EWM Transportation unit in S/4HANA 2021 Release

 Many customers with SAP Transportation management ( TM ) and Extended warehouse Management (EWM) use TM – EWM integration with Transportation unit (TU) in EWM with functionalities as described in my earlier blogs like https://blogs.sap.com/2018/03/14/direct-integration-between-embedded-ewm-tm-in-s4hana-improving-overall-efficiency-of-suply-chain/ , https://blogs.sap.com/2020/05/09/dock-appointment-scheduling-das-in-embedded-extended-warehouse-management-ewm-integrated-with-embedded-transportation-management-tm-in-s-4hana/ etc. SAP’s TM – EWM integration eliminates the time consuming and error prone manual co-ordination work between Transportation Planner and Warehouse Manager.

In this TM – EWM with EWM TU flow (till S/4HANA 2020 release), the Packing information (like number of packing boxes, weight & volume of those boxes etc) are transferred to ERP (ECC or S/4HANA) and TM only after Goods issue or departure of truck in EWM as depicted in below image. Packing information is transferred from

• EWM to TM at ‘Departure from checkpoint’ on TU in EWM and
• EWM to ERP at ‘Goods issue’ on outbound delivery in EWM

which are quite late in supply chain execution process.

These packing information are essential for transportation planning, estimation of freight costs etc and hence most the customers prefer the packing information to be available in ERP and TM prior to Goods issue  and these information are extremely critical for customers with

• Material master data not very right (from the perspective of its weight, volume etc)
• Assembling multiple products to a finished product

Many customers have enhanced standard SAP solution with BADIs’ etc so that these packing information are transferred to ERP and TM from EWM just after packing (i.e before goods issue) in EWM. SAP has now eliminated this limitation in their standard solution. S/4HANA 2021 release now provides the option for ‘Early Updates’ to transfer the packing information at ‘Loading finish’ (i.e prior to goods issue) on transportation unit in EWM as depicted in below image.

Below image shows that the Loading is completed and goods issue has NOT yet been posted for EWM TU 6100002784.

Note that the loading is completed at 17:02:03 in the above image and a PPF action (which also triggers an LDAP to TM) has been triggered at 17:02:06 on EWM TU as in below image.

 

Freight order in TM also gets updated with ‘Loading end’ with the same timestamp (of ‘Loading completed’ in transportation unit of EWM) as in below image.

EWM has also updated the packing information (number , identification , type of packing box or Handling Unit etc) in freight order of TM as in below image.

Packing information also gets transferred to ERP delivery with the PPF triggered on outbound delivery in EWM as in below image. Note also that the Goods issue is NOT posted in the document flow in ERP delivery.

Most of the customers were looking for these ‘Early updates’ of packing information in their TM-EWM integration and will benefit from this solution with better transportation planning and supply chain execution.

This ‘Early updates’ is a part of S/4HANA 2021 release and SAP has also provided the option to activate this solution to the customers on S/4HANA 2020 release as stated in SAP note 3105684.

This blog is based on my personal tests, observations, insights in S/4HANA 2021 release with embedded TM and EWM. Will appreciate your feedback / comments.

 Source: https://blogs.sap.com/2021/12/10/early-updates-with-packing-information-in-tm-ewm-integration-with-ewm-transportation-unit-in-s-4hana-2021-release/