Customer Use Cases

SAP Extended Warehouse Management

Delivering end-to-end returnable packaging traceability and a paperless shop floor

Sector: Consumer Products | Focus: Greenfield EWM Implementation

The Customer: A consumer products organisation seeking to modernise their warehouse operations. The goal was to achieve complete visibility of returnable packaging, seamless integration with manufacturing execution systems, and the elimination of paper-based processes across the shop floor.

The Challenge

Consumer products businesses managing complex packaging loops need precision, visibility and seamless system integration. The organisation faced several critical challenges:

    • Serialised Packaging Loops: Reconciling IBC (Intermediate Bulk Container) movements, Production Execution and Sales & Distribution required careful orchestration.
    • Third Party Coordination: Production warehouse staging had to integrate smoothly with third party warehouse operations.
    • New Technology Adoption: This was the client’s first experience with Embedded SAP EWM, presenting a significant learning curve for planning teams.

What they needed was a solution that could bring simplicity to a complex packaging environment while setting the foundation for paperless operations.

The Solution

Embedded SAP EWM on S/4HANA was implemented as a greenfield deployment to deliver:

    • A global template designed with embedded simplicity at its core
    • End-to-end traceability for IBC returnable packaging
    • Tight integration between SAP EWM and MES for seamless production handshakes
    • RF scanning to eliminate paper from shop floor processes

The Outcome

    • 99.8% stock accuracy achieved by month two
    • Packaging visibility reduced shrinkage by approximately 3%
    • Additional RF user training workshops delivered post go-live to address initial scoping gaps

With returnable packaging now fully visible and stock accuracy at near-perfect levels, teams spend less time chasing discrepancies and more time driving value. The shop floor runs cleaner, leaner and entirely paper-free.

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