Before we discuss SAP Stock Room, it’s essential to understand why it is more important than Warehouse Management (WM). WM can be used as a part of WM in S/4HANA but in a compatibility mode. SAP has documented this in Notes 2269324 and 2270211 in detail.
With this option, SAP has allowed customers to use WM to migrate their existing solution to S/4HANA smoothly. If you refer to SAP Note 2269324, you will see that SAP restricts the usage of components in compatibility mode until 31st December 2025. However, from S/4HANA 1909, Stock Room Management is available instead of Warehouse Management.
SAP Stock Room Management vs. EWM:
This is a new version of LE-WM for S/4HANA, where the complex solutions for the warehouse have been removed by SAP. So, Stock Room is a solution in S/4HANA that supports small, medium, and manual warehouses with primary, simple, and flexible offerings covering the normal warehouse processes.
The concept behind bringing this solution of Stock Room Management is to give the existing LE/WM customer a free hand to keep their warehouse integrated with ECC before or during migration from ECC to S/4HANA. Stock Room Management offers immediate benefits of permitting the business to continue using basic and core warehouse functionality with less risk while migrating to S4/HANA. The following features have been removed from Stock Room.
- Decentral WM (WM-DWM)
- Task and resource management (WM-TRM)
- Warehouse control unit interface (WM-LSR)
- Wave management (WM-TFM-CP)
- Value-added services (WM-VAS)
- Cross-docking (WM-CD)
- Yard management (WM-YM)
So, as a customer, the million-dollar question is whether you should switch to Stock Room Management or choose Basic Extended Warehouse Management. Let’s evaluate which is a better option.
Remembering that Stock Room Management will be available even post-December 2025, customers need to remember that this is a potential option that SAP does not plan to develop further. So, in Stock Room Management, Fiori apps or any other upgradation benefit that comes with SCM will not be available. If the customer thinks these are essential, opting for Extended Warehouse Management would be a suitable option as this remains SAP’s strategic roadmap – SAP Note 2881166.
The current warehouse management option can only be continued until December 2025. Hence, SAP recommends migrating to an Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) solution. But if the customer does not have business requirements or complex processes, the customer could rely on an existing simple, reliable, and flexible solution covering core warehouse processes. They can continue using WM-LE till 2025 and Stock Room Management after that. This is considering the exclusion of previously practiced functions after the migration to the new solution of Stock Room Management in S4/HANA.
So if you need basic warehouse operations, Stock Room is value for money. If you need a more advanced solution, basic EWM will be the right choice. And, if you are looking for a complete end-to-end integrated warehouse solution nothing better than EWM to make it happen.
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