Staging Area

Definition

Stagin area is a concept which defined by SAP EWM to used for the interim storage of goods in the warehouse. They are located in close proximity to the doors assigned to them. You can define staging areas for different purposes and even simultaneously for multiple purposes.

In delivery processing, the SAP EWM system uses determination rules to determine the following for each delivery item:

●  Staging area groups
●  Staging areas
●  Staging bays
●  Doors

SAP EWM application needs staging areas, staging area groups, and staging bays for storage control.

Staging area and door determination runs automatically in the background when you create or change a delivery (outbound delivery order or inbound delivery) in Extended Warehouse Management (EWM).In the outbound delivery process, it runs after route determination since the route influences the determination of staging areas and doors.

Door

A door is a location where the goods either arrive in the warehouse or leave it. A picked-items zone can be assigned to a dock door as a default value. This value is assigned to the dock door in the delivery document, provided the "Door and picked-items-zone determination" do not have a different assignment.

It is an organizational unit that is assigned to the Warehouse Number.

Trucks drive up to the doors of a warehouse in order to unload or load goods there. The doors are located in physical proximity to the respective staging areas.

To optimize the putaway and pick processes in your warehouse, you can define doors and staging areas in a warehouse number. You can also assign the doors to the staging areas as goods receiving and shipping points. The staging area is added to the door in the delivery document if there is no other assignment listed under Door and Staging Area Determination.

You can also assign different functions, even simultaneously, to a door. These include:

• Goods receipts
• Goods issues
• Cross-docking
• Flow through

The system finds the doors and staging areas for the individual deliveries using search criteria that help to optimize the material flow during putaway, cross-docking, and picking.

Storage Bin

A storage type generally contains several storage spaces or slots. These are called storage bins in Warehouse Management (WM). The storage bin is the smallest available unit of space in a warehouse. The storage bin therefore describes the position in the warehouse where the goods are or can be stored.

Since the address of a storage bin is frequently derived from a coordinate system, a storage bin is often referred to as a coordinate. The coordinate 01-02-03 for example, can refer to a storage bin in row 1, stack 2, and level 3.

You assign each storage bin to a specific warehouse number and storage type according to its location. You must also assign each storage bin to a storage section.

You can also define the following additional characteristics of a storage bin:

• Maximum weight

• Total capacity

• Fire containment section

• Storage bin type (for example, for small or large pallets)

With certain stock placement strategies, the storage bin type plays a significant role in optimizing the automatic search for a storage bin in connection with the pallet type. For example, you can define the WM putaway strategy to place large industrial pallets into a specific large bin type and smaller pallets into small bins.

References:

SAP. (n.d.). Stock Removal Strategies. SAP Help Portal. https://help.sap.com/viewer/3d97bec9bf1649099384bb8167df3cf2/f2cccb53ad377114e10000000a174cb4.html