The following additional information is aimed at IDES users with prior knowledge in the areas of Warehouse Management (WM) and ALE.

In the Dallas plant, storage location 0095 is managed as a decentralized warehouse. This is determined by the assignment of the plant – storage location combination for warehouse number 005, which is defined in Customizing. To see the Customizing of the decentralized warehouse management, see the IMG, under Logistics Execution ® Decentralized WMS Integration. This is where the settings are made for the central and decentralized processing.

In this example, the warehouse is a distribution center for trading goods. In the Dallas plant, PCs and accessories are delivered via purchase orders and picked in the WM-administrated warehouse complex. To ensure permanent availability and the greatest possible independence of the warehouse processes, this warehouse complex should be administered in a separate system. Processes for Inventory Management, Financial Accounting and Controlling are executed in the central R/3 System. Physical warehouse processes such as creating transfer orders for putaway, the picking of outbound deliveries or the planning and monitoring of stock movements are handled separately. The warehouse processes are also executed in an SAP R/3 System in warehouse management. The two systems are represented by different logical systems.

In order to separate the functions, the master data and transaction data must also be split up. Information about the valuation of materials is not relevant to the decentralized warehouse management system (WMS). The basic data of a material must be identical in both systems, but the warehouse-management specific material data, however, are relevant only to the WMS. The material mater data are therefore distributed between the central ERP and the decentralized WMS via message type MATMAS_WMS to reduce the number of fields not relevant to the WMS. Transaction data, such as the outbound delivery of a vendor, must exist in both systems. An outbound delivery is generated for the sales order in the ERP. This outbound delivery contains information for picking, and is therefore distributed to the WMS. A transfer order is generated for the picking in Warehouse Management.

The PCs are placed in bulk storage, the monitors are put in a high rack storage area. For this reason, material M-01 has a stock placement and stock removal type indicator in the material master, which controls the picking in warehouse type 004 (bulk storage). Once the transfer order has been created, the physical transfer is carried out, and then confirmed to the warehouse management system through the confirmation of the transfer order. Only when the physical picking from the relevant storage bins has been completed, is the goods issue posted for the outbound delivery. The confirmation of the goods issue distributed from the WMS to the ERP, where it is posted in inventory management.

Communication between the logical systems is defined through the WMS distribution model. You can find the distribution model in Customizing, under Logistics Execution ® Decentralized WMS Integration ® Central Processing ® Distribution ® Generate Distribution Model. You can also find this distribution model in Customizing for ALE.

The following steps describe how you set up a decentralized warehouse.

1. Create a warehouse number in the central system (do not make a copy), then activate it for decentralized processing. This warehouse number is not used in the ERP. It is required only to assign a delivery to the decentralized processing.
2. Create the warehouse number in the decentralized system and set up the processes for warehouse management.
3. Define the interface for warehouse management to inventory management.
4. Define the necessary message categories (for example, the reduced messages for the material master).
5. Generate the distribution model in the central system.
6. Generate the partner agreements in the central system.
7. Distribute the distribution model to the decentralized system.
8. Generate the partner agreements in the central system.
9. Define the number range for the warehouse document in the decentralized system and assign it.
10. Activate the link to the ERP system.
11. Define the conversion of the delivery types between ERP and WMS.
12. Define the requirement types for the WMS.
13. Define the confirmation control for the creation of inbound deliveries.