Grainger's SAP EWM Implementation at a Large, Highly Automated Distribution Center

James Kress - Business Systems Manager, Grainger M. Brian Carter - EWM Practice Manager, SAP America, Inc

Goals For Today

Provide an overview of SAPs Extended Warehouse Management Solution Understand who Grainger is and how our story may be relevant to you. Present opportunities to learn from our successes, our oversights and overall experiences with the implementation of EWM in large, complex distribution center environments. Create connections that last beyond this event to enable us to help each other moving forward.

History of SAP Warehouse Management

Extended Warehouse Management Overview

Outbound Processing

Material Flow System Architecture

About Grainger

$9 billion
in sales in 2012
Global Operations

2.0MILLION
ACTIVE CUSTOMERS
Canada Europe

715 branches 27 distribution centers 22,400 team members

United States Latin America Asia

Named to 2013 FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list

15th Largest e-retailer in US and Canada

2.7 Billion
IN E-COMMERCE SALES IN 2012

Access to 1 million + Products

Grainger Products

Logistics Network

Systems Landscape

Systems Landscape

EWM Instance 1

Performance

ERP

EWM Instance 2 EWM Instance 3

Maintenance

Risk Mitigation

11

EWM to WCS Integration

EWM & MFS

EWM & Web Services/PI

Starting point for us with our first install

Overall MFS is very robust but was overkill for our design. Our strategy was to focus on the WMS and allow the Hardware Vendor to focus on the WCS Utilized MFS for communications (telegrams)

For our Goods To Person (GTP) we migrated to Web Services for a better fit Volume
Ability to bundle records into a single message

Recovery /Speed
Improved restart ability Real-time (No delay) communications after outages

Why SAP EWM?

Supports strategy for a stable and agile Warehouse Management System (WMS) platform Ability to leverage strategic SAP partnership Allows native integration with other SAP components and modules Capability to take advantage of SAPs continued product investment Maintains long term hardware and software vendor relationships

Project Approach

Blueprinted a US Distribution Center baseline template with phased in functionality

Completed the SAP EWM installation at a single pilot distribution center (Greenfield) Went live with a SAP EWM solution that integrated with Goods To Person (Currently in ramp up) In the process of Rolling out to the remaining network (Converting existing facilities)

Graingers EWM Installations

Patterson, CA

Minooka, IL

Both Greenfield Locations Conversion of existing facilities in process now

EWM DCs Key Statistics

Patterson DC

800,000 sq ft 4.5 miles of conveyor 200,000+ items

Minooka DC 1,000,000 sq ft 5+ miles of conveyor Good to Person integration 500,000 items projected

Major Warehouse Processes Bin Module (Small Parts Storage) Integrated with the conveyor to move items Leveraged zone put away and picking

Bin Carton Utilized hundreds of thousands of bin locations Used a mixture of fixed and non-fixed locations

Major Warehouse Processes cont. Reach/Pallet Reach One item per location Pallet Multiple cartons per pallet

Packing and Consolidation Optimized work areas characteristics Enabled the ability to dynamically add or reduce stations

Major Warehouse Processes cont. Shipping Label (Print and Apply) Enhanced documentation handling Enabled fully automated labeling

Small Package Trailer Loading Permitted multiple small parcel trailers to be shipped daily Utilized automated conveyor extensions

Goods To Person

Development Approach No core modifications to base SAP EWM code Utilized on-shore and off-shore developers Conducted technical code review with SAPs Max Attention for some of our more complex enhancements Key EWM Enhancements for Grainger
Wave Management (Flowco) Streamlined Receiving Picking and Outputs Slotting

Successes - Training

Successes - Testing

Successes - Testing Integration Testing Executed 100+ test scripts Performed multiple tested cycles with all test scripts Volume Performance Executed using automated testing tool Performed multiple cycles at 200% of peak volume Performed with SAP SMEs monitoring (Max Attention)

Production Validation Production test with live data Testing Included: Conveyor system Printers/Output Management RF Devices

Oversights Key Learning We underestimated the transition of regular SAP ABAP developers learning the object oriented ABAP utilized by EWM More emphasis should have been placed up front on the In House knowledge and understanding of the configuration options Would have benefited from tighter controls over customization and scope changes post Blueprint Lack of master data management caused delays in testing and resulted in additional rework

Best Practices

Connections

Additional Resources

LEARNING POINTS

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING

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