This is the 2
nd part of my previous blog post "
10 Steps for Migrating to SAP EWM on SAP S/4HANA Platform”
In this blog post, we will investigate possible open transactions/documents in the legacy SAP EWM and see what options we have for closing them before we can migrate the stock to SAP S/4HANA EWM system. Currently, it is not possible to migrate any transactions/documents from the legacy SAP EWM to SAP S/4HANA decentral EWM system. Hence by the start of the cutover phase, all the open transactions must be closed and there should be no stock linked to any of them.
Inbound and Outbound Deliveries
- Check the inbound and outbound deliveries in the warehouse and analyse the average processing time needed to complete the deliveries.
- Have a plan to avoid the distribution of deliveries to EWM in case they cannot be completed before the cutover.
- Disable automatic distribution to SAP EWM
- Evaluate the reason on why the Delivery is not set to status complete. These could be linked to:
- Status “New”
- Open Warehouse Tasks/Warehouse Orders
- Open Quality Inspection Documents
- Reject “New” inbound deliveries and reduce the item quantity of outbound deliveries to 0 to set them to status “completed”.
- Reduce the outbound delivery to the picked quantity or 0 in case this cannot be delivered before the cutover. This will set the statis to "completed".
- If In- and Outbound deliveries were rejected/zeroed/cancelled, new ones will have to be created in the new S/4HANA EWM system (redistribute them)
- Close all the open related documents and verify that the delivery is set to “completed” status
Posting Change Deliveries
- Have a plan to avoid ERP driven posting changes in case they cannot be completed in legacy SAP EWM before the cutover.
- Evaluate the reason on why the Delivery is not set to status complete. These could be linked to:
- Status “New”
- Open Warehouse Tasks/Warehouse Orders
- Close all the open related documents and verify that the delivery is set to “completed” status.
Expected Goods Receipts
- Open EGRs are not an issue.
- EGRs can be sent once again to the new SAP S/4HANA EWM system after the migration has been completed.
Production Material Requests
- Avoid sending PMRs to SAP EWM for staging components if they cannot be staged/consumed before cutover
- Process/Production orders starting after the begin of SAP EWM downtime should not be released to avoid distribution of PMR
- Open PMRs may exist in various statuses
- Completely open PMRs (no staging yet)
- Products staged but no consumption yet
- Products staged & partially consumed
- Evaluate the handling options for open PMRs as PMRs cannot be redistributed to the new SAP S/4HANA EWM system. They need to be closed.
- Option 1: Stage and post consumption if possible, in the old SAP EWM system
- Option 2: Stage completely in the old SAP EWM system. Consumption via backflush or manual posting in ERP after migration to new SAP S/4HANA EWM system
- Option 3: Split manufacturing orders into sub-orders.
- For the parts that can be completed before the migration, PMRs are only created in the legacy SAP EWM system and processed completely
- For the remaining suborders the PMR should only be created in new SAP S/4HANA EWM system post migration
Quality Inspection Documents
- Evaluate how long the Quality Inspection Process takes usually until a decision is made and follow-up activities are confirmed.
- As SAP EWM Quality Inspection documents cannot be migrated, check with business if the decisions can be expedited for all open inspection documents before cutover.
- In case the QIE documents are still open before cutover consider the possible options:
- Option 1 (no additional quality inspection document):
- Before cutover: Decide what to do with open inspection lots, create “temporary” Usage Decision to release the stock from inspection document.
- Post migration go the ERP system and update the Usage Decision (QA12) accordingly.
- Option 2:
- Use a special UD for migration to set the stock in blocked status and release it from the inspection document. (normal “rejected” UD would not fit as this scenario will have to be differentiated)
- Post migration trigger a new Re-inspection process in SAP S/4HANA EWM blocked stock
Open Warehouse Tasks/Warehouse Orders/Physical Inventory Documents
- Monitor daily older “Open” / “Waiting” Warehouse tasks (for e.g. no warehouse tasks older than 2 days)
- Avoid creation of new warehouse tasks (for e.g. via Wave Release) in the last few hours before cutover.
- All “open” and “waiting” warehouse tasks must to be either confirmed or cancelled before system shut down for cutover activities.
Recommendation: categorize Warehouse tasks and define action (e.g. cancellation and recreation later, etc.)
Physical Inventory Documents
- Monitor Active, Counted, Inactive or Recounted PI documents
- Avoid creation of new PI documents in the last days before cutover. If possible, disable the creation of PI documents from low-stock check.
- Close the open PI documents:
- Inactive PI documents – Don’t have any impact on the migration
- Active PI documents – Decide to count or delete the PI documents
- Counted PI documents – Post the counting results
Open MFS Telegrams
- Monitor daily older “Not confirmed” / “Not processed” incoming MFS telegrams
- All “Not confirmed” / “Not processed” MFS telegrams must to be processed before system shut down for cutover activities.
Open Transportation Units
- If the related deliveries in the TUs are closed, open TUs do not have any impact. However, such TUs cannot be archived in the legacy EWM system later. Hence it is advisable to close the TUs by a “check-out” or “departure” action.
Recommendation: Execute Report /SCWM/POST_PROC_DLV_SET_DOY or schedule this as a periodic run. This will close all the Outbound Deliveries and set the TUs to completed status.
Stock not in Bins
- Difference Analyzer: Ensure that the stock from difference analyzer has been cleared.
- Stock on Resources: If there are stock on resources check if there is an open WT and confirm the same. If not move the stock to a bin that will be migrated by creating an ad-hoc WT.
Recommendation: In general, and /SCWM/ERP_STOCKCHECK is advised to run daily to keep the stocks between ERP and EWM aligned.
RFC Queues
- Analyse and resolve all SMQ1/SMQ2/SM58 entries
Recommendation: This should be part of the regular application maintenance tasks/activities and hence there should not be a big number of queue entries just before cutover.
IDOCs
- Analyse and resolve all unprocessed or erroneous IDOCs in BD87
Recommendation: This should part of the regular application maintenance tasks/activities and hence there should not be a big number of IDOCs in error just before cutover.
Preparation of Warehouse Stocks before cutover
- Empty all intermediate storage bins
- Staging areas
- Production supply area
- Work centres
- Pick points
- Clearing areas
- Avoid / Clean up negative stocks
- Run /SCWM/ERP_STOCKCHECK and resolve inconsistencies
- Review any stock with reference to a document number
- Putaway not completed (reference to Inbound Delivery)
- Picking completed but no GI posted (reference to Outbound Delivery/PMR)
- By posting GI or cancelling pick
- in case of PMR stock can be unassigned via warehouse monitor
- Stock with reference to quality inspection document
- See QI documents on options to release the stock from the QIE document
Conclusion
For the migration from the legacy SAP EWM to the new SAP S/4HANA decentral EWM system there should be no open documents in the legacy SAP EWM system. Not all the documents listed above may apply to a warehouse being migrated. I am sure that SAP partners and SAP consultants supporting our SAP EWM customers to migrate to SAP S/4HANA decentral EWM would have defined best practices for handlings some of the above documents. I shall be glad if such best practices can be shared for the benefit of the entire SAP EWM community.
