17.08.2024
SAP S/4HANA Advanced Shipping & Receiving (Adv SR)
Integration option between EWM and TM
The integration between transportation planning and warehouse management has always played a major role for our customers. With the Adv SR process, SAP offers a new integration option between the two modules SAP Transportation Management (TM) and SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM). What exactly does that mean?
What is Advanced Shipping & Receiving?
With Adv SR, SAP is releasing an integrated and holistic E2E process between S/4HANA Transportation Management and Extended Warehouse Management, which considerably simplifies communication between these modules. Among other things, it supports multi-warehouse scenarios within a freight order. As a user, you get additional help with coordination from the arrival of a truck at the gate to the final receipt in the warehouse.
Functions of Advanced Shipping & Receiving
The Advanced Shipping & Receiving process is based on the SAP TM freight order (FO) and therefore no longer uses the transportation unit (TU) from EWM.
With the abolition of the TU, the Adv SR adds two new objects:
- The Consignment Order:
The consignment order in TM represents a business object to group multiple transportation requests based on certain business criteria, e.g. same source & destination location, same delivery date or same business partner. The consignment order serves as an important basis for the business partners involved in the same business process. The consignment order also contains a unique ID, which serves as a reference for the business partners. - The loading/unloading point:
The loading and unloading point is passed from SAP TM to EWM. They represent a group of gates.
With these additions and the simplified integration between warehouse and transportation, new functions and improvements in the processes are made possible.
Multi-pick / multi-drop: The same truck can be unloaded and reloaded at the same location during a multi-stop route, using only one business object. This enables better capacity utilization and a reduction in transport costs.
Cross-warehouse loading & unloading: Thanks to the new loading & unloading point, which allows different warehouse systems to be assigned to a loading point, it is now possible to load and unload stock from EWM-managed and non-EWM-managed warehouses onto the same truck.
Easier integration between business partners: thanks to automatic EDI communication for consignment orders, borderos and creation of full truck loads including shipping. Since only one document is shared with all business partners, there are no more difficulties in updating or synchronizing data with different documents.
Unlike before, the process is no longer aborted during error handling if message errors such as master data inconsistencies or reference errors occur. Instead, a business object is now created with the missing information and the user can repair or correct it manually or automatically.
Direct comparison with TU Integration
The Adv SR functionality reduces significant redundancies. In the previous, more complex TU-based integration (transport unit), each system had its own objects – the freight order in TM and the transport unit in EWM – which corresponded to the freight order. Different user interfaces and a lack of harmonization severely limited user-friendliness. In addition, integration often required additional development.
As a result of these difficulties and new requirements, SAP has now developed the Advanced Shipping & Receiving process.
In summary, we achieve a clear harmonization of the inbound and outbound processes, with a central freight view and a central status (start of loading, start of unloading, goods issue, etc.).
How bvise supports you
Business software in logistics processing is a complex matter, just like business processes. Our consultants at bvise have been involved since the first release of SAP TM and EWM and are very familiar with the latest functionalities in the SAP logistics world. This means we can provide optimum support.
Feel free to contact us to arrange a non-binding initial consultation, regardless of whether you are currently planning an implementation, are in the middle of it or simply want advice on the topic.