Lesson 1 of 6
The warehouse structure: from warehouse number to storage bin
10 min
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Inventory management in SAP S/4HANA knows that Contoso has 412 alternators in plant 1710, storage location 171A. It does not know where they are. Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) answers the next question: which aisle, which rack, which level, on which pallet. To do that, EWM needs a model of the building. This lesson walks through that model from the top down and builds the Contoso Motor Co. Detroit warehouse as a running example.
The hierarchy has four levels. The warehouse number is the whole site. A storage type is an area with its own physical character and rules, such as a high-rack, a shelf area or a bulk floor. A storage section is an optional subdivision of a storage type, for example fast movers near the front. A storage bin is the smallest addressable location, the exact place where stock sits.
Warehouse number
The warehouse number is a four-character key. SAP's guidance is to use one warehouse number for a group of buildings at one location, and separate warehouse numbers when sites are far apart or goods must travel on public roads between them. Contoso therefore has one warehouse number, 1710, for the Detroit distribution warehouse. Chicago (plant 1720) keeps plain inventory management and has no warehouse number. As sap-ewm-101 explains, Detroit moves from classic warehouse management (LE-WM) in ECC to embedded EWM in basic mode, with a new structure built for EWM rather than a copy of the old one.
A new warehouse number is rarely built from nothing. SAP delivers template settings, and the Copy Warehouse Customizing function copies a template or an existing warehouse. After creation, the warehouse number needs a few assignments that testers forget to check:
- A supply chain unit with the warehouse attribute, which carries the country, region and time zone. Time zone matters: wave times, task deadlines and goods issue times are calculated with it. Don't change it once products or documents exist.
- A custodian, the business partner that physically holds the stock without owning it.
- At least one goods receipt office and one shipping office, used in authorization checks and the condition technique. In recent releases (from SAP S/4HANA 2023) they can be derived from shipping points instead; check which option your project activated.
Storage types and their roles
A storage type is a four-character key for a physical or logical area. Every storage type has a role. Most are standard storage types where stock is kept and strategies find bins. Others model places where goods pass through: staging areas at the doors, work centers for packing or inspection, identification and pick points, doors, a yard, production supply areas, and automated areas controlled by a material flow system.
| Contoso storage type | Role | What happens there |
|---|---|---|
| 9010 GR staging | Staging area group | Pallets wait after unloading at doors DR01–DR03 |
| 0010 High-rack | Standard | Full pallets of alternators in reserve; empty-bin putaway |
| 0020 Picking shelves | Standard | Fixed bins for each fast-moving product; replenished from 0010 |
| 0030 Bulk floor | Standard (bulk storage behavior) | Pallets of regulator kits and crates of housings in rows |
| 8010 Packing | Work center | Picked cartons packed into shipping handling units at work center PK01 |
| 9020 GI staging | Staging area group | Packed pallets wait for loading at doors DR04–DR06 |
| 9030 Clarification | Standard | Damaged or unclear stock parked for a decision |
Storage types in warehouse 1710.
Staging areas are a detail worth knowing: a staging area is technically a storage section inside a storage type with the staging area group role, and each staging area is linked to doors. A work center sits in a storage type with a work center (or pick point) role and has its own bin. When a test says "goods were staged at door DR05," the evidence is a bin in storage type 9020.
- Truck at door DR02Inbound door assigned to the goods receipt staging area
- 9010 GR stagingPallets unloaded and goods receipt posted
- 0010 or 0030Putaway into high-rack or bulk floor, chosen by strategies
- 0020 fixed binsReplenishment fills the picking shelves from reserve
- 8010 packingPicked items packed into shipping units
- 9020 GI staging, door DR05Loaded onto the truck; goods issue posted
Sections, bins and the quant
Storage sections group bins with similar putaway attributes: heavy, bulky, hazardous, fast or slow movers. You only need them in a standard storage type if you use storage section search during putaway. Within a bin, stock is held as quants: one quant per combination of product, stock type, owner, batch and handling unit. Whether a new receipt may be added to an existing quant is a storage type setting, and it matters for first-in first-out: a quant keeps one goods receipt date, so adding to it blurs the age of the stock.
In SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, the same warehouse structure (warehouse number, storage types, sections, bins, activity areas) is set up through the Public Edition configuration and the Fiori warehouse apps, with a narrower set of options than Private Edition Customizing. Check the scope for your release before reusing a Private Edition design.
- The hierarchy is warehouse number → storage type → (storage section) → storage bin; stock in a bin is held as quants.
- Use one warehouse number per site; Contoso uses 1710 for Detroit and none for Chicago.
- Storage type roles separate storage areas from pass-through areas such as staging areas, doors and work centers.
- A warehouse number needs a supply chain unit, custodian and goods receipt and shipping offices before processes work.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. What is the smallest addressable location in the EWM warehouse structure?
2. Contoso is opening a second Detroit building across the street, connected by public roads. What does SAP's guidance suggest?
3. In EWM, what is a staging area technically?
4. Why does Contoso prohibit addition to existing stock in high-rack 0010?