An organizational unit allowing the differentiation of material stocks within a plant. All data referring to a particular storage location is stored at storage location level. This applies mainly to storage location stocks.

An alphanumeric key defining a complex warehousing system consisting of different organizational and technical units (storage areas). All material data specific to warehouse management and relating to a particular warehouse number is stored at warehouse number level. This includes, for example, data on palletizing, stock placement, and stock removal.

A physical or logical storage area that can be defined for a warehouse in the Warehouse Management (WM) system. It consists of one or more storage bins.

Storage types differ according to organizational and technical criteria. The following are typical examples of storage types that can be defined using the WM system:

• Goods receipt area

• Goods issue area

• Picking area

• High rack storage area

All material data specific to warehouse management and relating to a particular storage type is stored at storage type level. This includes, for example, fixed storage bins as well as maximum and minimum storage bin quantities.

The warehouse number and storage type are of relevance only if your company uses the WM system.

Several storage locations can be assigned to a plant. However, only one storage location per plant can be assigned to a warehouse number.

Storage locations assigned to different plants can be managed under the same warehouse number. Here too, only one storage location per plant can be assigned to the warehouse number.

One warehouse number may exist for several physical warehouses, these being represented as storage types in the WM system. One storage type groups together several storage bins. A storage bin is the smallest physical unit the system can address.

An example of corporate structure with storage locations, warehouse numbers, and storage types is given in the following graphic representation:

In the SAP library: