SAP EWM: Everything flows - from purchasing to the customer
It belongs in every desk drawer and is available in all colors and strengths: the Edding pen. The brand's aluminium markers are manufactured in Europe by Linhardt, which specializes in innovative packaging solutions made of aluminium and plastic. In order to position itself for the future, the family business from Bavaria developed an IT and digitalization strategy a few years ago. An important part of this was the introduction of S/4 . On this basis, a concept for the further development of logistics up to 2030 was drawn up. Linhardt is investing over 100 million euros in digitalization and automation measures - more than ever before in the company's history. The aim is to improve processes and material flows as well as to counteract the shortage of skilled workers.
Three sub-projects of the logistics concept have already been implemented in the old SAP WM: the disposal of aluminum waste from the production areas via connected autonomous mobile robots, the transport of finished goods by these robots and the connection of the new packaging line, which can be operated manually, semi-automatically and fully automatically. The main focus here was on the hardware and changes to the organization.
Adapt system to organization
Three years ago, the switch from SAP WM to EWM became necessary: to ensure a seamless connection of all hardware in the logistics area in the new system landscape, to meet the individual requirements of the specialist departments and to implement further innovative sub-projects. "Due to the many automation projects, it was clear to us that we should start the connection as quickly as possible and avoid further in-house developments in the old solution," explains Robert Brückner, Director IT and Digitalization at Linhardt. "Nevertheless, we wanted to make sure that the integration of SAP EWM was actually the right choice."
Linhardt enlisted the support of IT service provider T.Con. The team initially looked at everything from a "greenfield" perspective and scrutinized the existing processes - with the aim of making adjustments where the customer could exploit its competitive advantages. Stephan Nickl, SAP Senior Logistics Consultant at T.Con: "For companies with very individual, creative processes, it pays to follow the greenfield approach in coordination in order to break away from old processes - even if, as in this project, the implementation is subsequently carried out according to the brownfield approach."
One argument in favor of SAP EWM was that the LE-WM and LE-TRA logistics modules will not be maintained for much longer. For companies like Linhardt that have switched to S/4, support for WM will even end at the end of 2025, which means that companies will have to think about what happens after that anyway. SAP EWM is a good choice if extensive functions, real-time data availability, the analysis of large volumes of data and high performance are required.
Road to EWM
The EWM project was launched in spring 2023 with the aim of adapting the system landscape to the organization in order to remain future-proof, innovative and competitive. The starting point was the best practices for SAP EWM. Based on this, the existing processes were extensively examined and put to the test. Good things were retained, optimization potential was identified and solutions were implemented. This meant moving away from departments and towards end-to-end material management.
flow from purchasing to production to the customer. In addition, all manual processes were to be digitized. This involved more than 80 business processes, with some processes being linked to almost 100 test cases.
The main challenge of the integration was the organizational effort involved. For example, all 17,000 storage locations had to be relabeled with more error-tolerant 2D barcodes and the like.
Employee training was also extensive. Several integration tests and test weeks were carried out. Jürgen Löw, Business Lead Logistics at T.Con: "It is advisable to work with an agile project method in this area. Users are familiarized with the system right from the start, can help shape the process and ask questions - this increases acceptance."
Positive effects after a short time
The go-live took place after 15 months at the headquarters in Viechtach within the agreed time and budget. The positive effects were already noticeable after a short time: Previously, Linhardt only had storage units for finished goods; today, the handling units are managed in the unfinished and finished goods warehouse.
In addition, the requirements monitor was completely redeveloped as an extension of the warehouse management monitor for material provision. The monitor shows which material is required on which production line, what is already on the way and what has been consumed. Open quantities can be created directly from this transaction via warehouse tasks and appear on the scanners, with which employees can then continue working immediately. Thanks to a combination of demand monitor, scanner functions for PVB supply and retrograde consumption posting, the manual and time-consuming entry of batches, including those that are missing or incorrect, is no longer necessary for the adjusters directly on the production lines. Processing is automatically faster and more accurate, and batches can now be tracked in more detail. Overall, there is more transparency about the material flow so that it can be better controlled.
Another aspect is the introduction of Advanced Shipping Notice (ASN), i.e. delivery notification via EDI: outbound deliveries are first generated by the supplier and then lead to an Inbound Despatch Advice (DESADV) at Linhardt via electronic transmission. The SAP system then converts the advice into an inbound delivery. The goods receipt process is simplified in that the manual creation of this systematic inbound delivery (including HU data) is no longer necessary; the process is also much more efficient than before thanks to the pre-assignment. In addition, employees do not have to attach any additional labels in the incoming goods process, as the information from the suppliers is reused.
End users now also benefit from a better look and feel and greater user-friendliness in the area of mobile applications. New functions in SAP EWM, such as MobGUI in combination with screen personas, also make maintenance and customization easier for internal IT. Hurdles such as confusing information display or a lack of accessibility can be eliminated.
System upgrades and roll-outs
Linhardt's conscious decision to intensively automate its logistics processes led to the choice of either carrying out the developments on the basis of a discontinued system or taking the step towards SAP EWM at an early stage. The decisive criteria for EWM were to implement the planned innovations in a future-proof manner and to guarantee state-of-the-art technology. With EWM, the company has a central and reliable platform for automation, participates in SAP's further developments, can evaluate Warehouse Insights and use innovations from the Business Technology Platform. Specifically, the plan includes further process optimizations, the first system upgrade and the roll-outs to the other locations. A major step will then be the switch to the new Transportation Management System, SAP TM. Thanks to the combination of SAP EWM and TM, Linhardt will benefit in future from the full range of functions of SAP's logistics solutions, such as Advanced Shipping and Receiving. (rk)
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