Warehouse Clerk & Goods Movements
Do you manage your warehouse with embedded EWM in S/4HANA? Do you have a very simple inbound and outbound process flows? Do you feel the use of deliveries for goods receipts / goods issues and transfer postings lead to higher process complexity and increase in overall operational costs?
If the above questions struck a chord with you, then I am sure this blogpost will definitely appeal to you.
MIGO - The Post Goods Movement App
As part of better user experience, in the past SAP replaced multiple transactions for goods movement postings with a single transaction MIGO or the Post Goods Movement app. This transaction has been widely accepted by customers as it’s designed to have all the options for all of the goods movement scenarios.
Consequently, SAP envisioned using Post Goods Movement app (MIGO) for
all goods movements in and out of an EWM managed warehouse too. Ofcourse, this would only be applicable for embedded EWM.
EWM Journey towards MIGO
While in
S/4HANA 1909 (Wave 1) SAP mostly focused on repetitive manufacturing, in
S/4HANA 2020 (Wave 2) the main focus was to enable synchronous goods movement postings as well for discrete and process manufacturing as well as HU creation in EWM for GRs. With
S/4HANA 2020 release, the following communication of
Goods Movements from Inventory Management (MM-IM) to
EWM have been enhanced to work synchronously:
Goods movements for discrete manufacturing or process manufacturing posted in Inventory Management using the Post Goods Movement app (MIGO).
When you post goods receipt of a finished product, the system can also create the putaway warehouse task in EWM automatically.
You can cancel goods movements synchronously in Inventory Management and EWM. If an open putaway warehouse task still exists, it is canceled too. However, it is not possible to do a document specific cancellation after confirmed WTs exist for the HU.
- Display of EWM material document number in MIGO (new tab for warehouse) and in MB51 as well as navigation to EWM monitor.
Goods movements posted in Inventory Management and EWM using the Inventory Management BAPIs
Production order confirmation in discrete manufacturing
Process order confirmation in process manufacturing
Confirmation of the final backflush in repetitive manufacturing
Summarized JIT calls
The system communicates goods movements (for example, goods receipts, goods issues, and posting changes) by means of the interface for synchronous postings from Inventory Management to EWM using the function module MB_CREATE_GOODS_MOVEMENT.
This feature of using MIGO to post Goods Receipts from Production received a lot of applause from EWM customers.
With
S/4HANA 2020 FPS01, SAP extended the possibility of synchronous communication from Inventory Management (MM-IM) to EWM also for Goods Movements from External Procurement. When you post goods receipt for a purchasing document directly in Inventory Management and
Extended Warehouse Management (
EWM), the system can also automatically create the putaway warehouse task in
EWM. If you cancel a direct goods receipt in Inventory Management, the system cancels any open putaway warehouse tasks for it at the same time.
The following are some of the goods movements for external procurement that you can post using synchronous goods movement using the Post Goods Movement app:
Goods receipt for purchase order
Cancellation of goods receipt for purchase order
Return products to the vendor as a return delivery referencing previous goods receipts
Goods receipt as a subsequent delivery referencing previous goods receipts
You can post the goods receipt for an entire purchase order, for several purchase orders, or for a partial goods receipt.
Unified package building profiles for goods receipt from vendor and for goods receipt from production that are used for the determination of packaging proposals upon goods receipt.
- If you don’t maintain any unified package building profiles, you can still maintain the packaging manually in the app.
Synchronous goods movements have proven to be an an advantage especially for those customers with simple in- and outbound scenarios as the process is simplified and requires less user interaction and system communication.
To continue this story of this simplification, SAP plans to enable more and more synchronous goods movements. This includes transfer postings, goods receipts and goods issues. Hence, this journey continues into
S/4HANA 2202 Cloud Edition and later into
S/4HANA 2022 (planned to be released in Q3 2022). With this releases the synchronous communication from Inventory Management (MM-IM) to EWM shall be possible for almost all Goods Movements Types including goods movements covering:
- Stock transfers from an IM managed storage location to an EWM managed storage location
- Stock transfers from an EWM managed storage location to an IM managed storage location
- Stock transfers and transfer postings within an EWM managed storage location (which means postings that refer to a posting change in EWM).
- Additionally, GR postings and GI postings without respect to a purchase order or without production relevance will be enabled for synchronous goods movements. This includes postings such as GR without PO reference (movement type 501) and GI for cost center (movement type 201).For all the additionally supported movement types, it shall be possible to create HUs in case the movement corresponds to a receipt in the warehouse.
Some other features planned for S/4HANA 2022 are:
- Support auxiliary packaging materials during receiving of HUs from production (Downport available for S/4HANA 2021)
- Support QM processes during goods receipts
Activation of Synchronous Goods Movements
In order to post goods movements synchronously, a customizing for the activation of those additional synchronous goods movements posted with transaction MIGO is provided. The activity "
Activate Synchronous Goods Movements in the Warehouse" provides this additional customizing. Here, you can activate synchronous goods movements from Inventory Management (MM-IM) to the EWM managed warehouse for documents posted with Post Goods Movement app (transaction MIGO).
You have the following options:
- You can activate synchronous goods movements on warehouse level for all transfer movement types, goods receipt movement types or goods issue movement types.
- You can activate or deactivate synchronous goods movements in a warehouse for a combination of movement type and the direction of the goods movement from the warehouse perspective:
- Inbound, for example, movement type 501 for a goods receipt without purchase order
- Outbound, for example, movement type 201 for a consumption for cost center
- Posting change, only relevant for transfer movement types, for example, movement type 311 for a transfer posting from one storage location to another managed in the same warehouse, or movement type 321 for a stock transfer from quality inspection stock to unrestricted use stock in the warehouse
These settings are not relevant for the following movements, as the decision to either post synchronously in Inventory Management and in the warehouse or not for those scenarios depends on either the purchase order or settings for production:
- goods receipts or goods issues from production with reference to order or reservation
- goods receipts with reference to purchase order
- goods receipt with reference to a Summarized JIT call
Restrictions
The following features are not yet available/planned:
