Improving the Use of SAP WMS Reporting Practices

This thesis investigates improving the use of SAP Warehouse Management System (WMS) reporting practices in the case company. The management in the case company realized that the SAP WMS is not able to provide adequate reports. The management needs reports to be able to monitor the operations of their spare parts warehouse run by a third party logistics provider. Overall, management in the case company wants to improve its operative working practices. The research method for conducting this thesis was case study. This is due to the fact that this thesis had its evidence based on the analysis of documents, interviews, discussions and observations. The researcher was not involved in any real development activities or implementation. The research design included five steps, where the business challenge was combined with the current state analysis and the conceptual framework in order to create and finalize the proposal. As an outcome of the current state analysis, two main challenges were identified to come up with a conceptual framework and later continue to build a proposal for the case company. Two main challenges to check the existing knowledge were described as: a) “WHAT” the management wants to be reported from SAP WMS (and that is currently missing), b) “HOW” the SAP WMS should be used in order to generate the correct reports for the managers. The final outcome of the study provided an improvement proposal for reporting from SAP WMS in the case company. The proposal identified eight reports that the management needed for reporting. It proposed to use SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse with SAP Business Objects for implementing the reports. It suggested that a barcode scanner integration was a must before any report implementation could take place. This is because data related to timestamps was clearly missing to be able to generate accurate reports. The final proposal was provided with an implementation plan for report generation from the SAP WMS. Last, but not least, the final proposal for the case company included five recommendations in order to aid reporting from the SAP WMS. The final proposal along with its recommendations helps the case company in improving its use of SAP WMS for reporting practices. The case company would surely benefit from the results of this study to create well defined, accurate and structured reports. Good quality reporting would help to increase efficiency and improve their overall operative practices