EXPRIS optimises warehouse processes at Walter Meier AG

Published by Monika Huber at

NEWS Warehouse processes

EXPRIS optimises warehouse processes at Walter Meier (Fertigungslösungen) AG

With SAP Warehouse Management, EXPRIS AG optimized the warehouse processes within 3 months and returned the processes to the SAP standard.

The entire warehouse logistics were mapped in the central warehouse with SAP Inventory Management with several storage locations. This led to the master data maintenance for material masters becoming time-consuming and confusing. Some functions were programmed in the sales order entry or the material master data maintenance according to the customer's needs. Despite these adjustments, the functional scope of SAP IM remained limited and inflexible. The solution, which had grown over the years, no longer met the requirements of efficient and optimised warehouse processes. In addition, a four-eye principle made it difficult to efficiently handle the storage and retrieval processes.

Our solution

The inflexible and unclear warehouse structure in IM was completely transferred to SAP Warehouse Management (WM) and reduced to an IM warehouse. The implementation was carried out in SAP Standard. Customised developments were dispensed with.

Thanks to SAP WM, warehouse processes can be handled efficiently, flexibly and transparently. Material master data maintenance is significantly simplified. Thanks to the storage and retrieval strategies, warehousing is optimized and designed efficiently. With the EXPRIS standard migration tools based on Excel, the data migration of the material masters and the inventories was easy.

In addition, materials are divided into fast and slow movers. These settings are already active and an optimization of stock management can be carried out continuously in productive operation. EXPRIS is no longer required for these changes. This can be carried out independently by the warehouse manager. The system settings are prepared and the changeovers are only carried out by adjusting master data.

The 4-eyes control principle was abolished and replaced by mobile scanners. By scanning barcodes on the storage locations and the labelled materials, it can be ensured that incorrect storage or incorrect picking is reduced to a minimum.

The scanners run on the Android operating system. Costly middleware is no longer required. The scanners are based on SAP standard functionalities. The screens on the mobile devices are easy to adjust to the customer's needs. Programming skills are not necessary.

Key data

Project duration : 3 months
Number of materials in the warehouse: 23000
Number of storage locations: 12000
Storage area: 10000 M2
Number of warehouse staff: 5
Number of scanners: 4
Number of scanner dialogues 12


Closing words

Thanks to intensive and constructive cooperation, we were able to complete the project on time and within budget. We would like to thank all those involved in the project for their great work.

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