- An handling unit (HU) can now be empty in EWM, whereas in the past SAP could only process HUs with content.
- HU management is fully integrated into EWM processes. HUs can be nested within each other to form hierarchies.
- Packaging materials are products used to contain other materials/products within an HU. Their master data defines the HU capacity and other attributes.
2. Handling Unit Management
• In the past, SAP has defined an HU as a physical unit consisting of
packaging materials and the goods contained on/in it, and an HU was
always a combination of products and packaging materials. The
interesting point in this definition is that SAP usually only processes HUs
with content — which means that SAP can’t work with empty HUs.
• For EWM, this is no longer true: You can create empty HUs. You can empty
a full HU by moving out the stock and it still exists.
• HU management is completely integrated into EWM — by design. All
processes work with HUs. Some processes are dependent on the existence
of HUs, for example, the multistep inbound and outbound processing
(using the POSC and LOSC). And HUs can be nested into each other,
making up a hierarchy of HUs, as described in detail inthe next section.
3. Handling Unit Management
An HU consists of an HU header and possibly HU items. The HU header data of an HU contains data including the
packaging material, weight, volume and dimensional data, HU type, and the status (both system status and user
status). The HU items can consist of products, auxiliary packaging materials, and other HUs. If an HU item is a
nested HU, this can hold items within it as well. You can see a couple of examples of nested HUs in EWM. The
example on the left contains a pallet that holds a carton. Both pallet and carton are modeled as HUs and both
have an assigned HU number (HU 100 and 101). The example on the right consists of a pallet, HU 102, and on
the pallet, there are three small cartons (HU103, 104, and 105), material 4712 (directly on the pallet, without
nesting) and an auxiliary packing material 4713 (in this case, a band that holds the three cartons together).
4. Handling Unit Management
• Packaging Materials
• A packaging material is a product that is used as a container for other
material to be packaging in or on it to create an HU (where the HU is the
packaging material plus the products contained within it). As the
Packaging material is also a Product, there is certain master data
associated with it that controls, for example, the capacity of the HU, tare
weight, tare volume, and other data about the HU when the product is
used as the packaging material for the HU. Examples of packaging
materials include pallets, cartons, and containers.
5. Empty HUs in EWM
When the last product of the pallet in a rack is removed by a picker, the pallet becomes empty.
In EWM, you can configure, per packaging material type, whether you want EWM to continue
tracking the empty HU on the bin, or if you want the HU to disappear. To specify the settings in
the EWM IMG, follow the menu path Extended Warehouse Management • Cross-Process
Settings • Handling Units • Basics • Define Packaging Material Types.
6. Printing HUs
You can print documents for HU documents out of EWM. You can set up EWM to automatically print
a list or a label when you create an HU or when it arrives at a certain process step in your
warehouse, but you can also manually trigger the printing, for example, from a work center. HU
documents can contain information about the HU itself, such as HU number and barcode, weight,
consolidation group, packing material, but also information about the contents such as materials,
dangerous goods, destination, owner, and other information.
HU printing in EWM is based on Adobe Forms technology or on SAP Smart Forms technology. In the
following description, we will focus our explanations on the Smart Forms technology, as this is the
most widely used method for printing with EWM.
7. Smart Forms Available in EWM Standard for
Printing HUs
In the standard EWM solution, there are several Smart Forms for HU printing that
are delivered standard
