Storage Location Naming Convention without WM!

Question

Dear all
We are facing serious problem in our Storage Location for Raw Material.
We have 4 types of Raw Material Seating (S), Panel (P), Metal (M), Wood (W). And they are all stored under Storage Location: RWSL.
Requirement:
Although we have visual guideline as to which industrial rack will store the type of Material, it is insufficient. We need a more refined storage location down to which BIN of the rack we will put the Raw Material.
Due to limited time and resource, we cannot have WM implemented right now. Thus, we have come out with 2 alternative to overcome this problem:
Alternative 01:
We will use the Fixed Bin field in Storage Data 02 by putting the Bin number assigned to each Rack.
E.g. For Seating material code:SEAT01, we will maintain the Fixed Bin as R12A01/A02, it means this Seating material SEAT01 will be stored at Rack 12, fixed bin A01 or A02.
Question to Alternative 01: Will it cause problem in GR, GR, Transfer Posting and Stock Count?
Alternative 02:
Instead of going into details to put Fixed Bin field in Storage Data 2, we will abandan the existing Storage Location RMSL by introducing new format for Storage Location
Here is the example of Alternative 02:
For raw materials, we will use 4 digits location numbers, consistent with other Storage locations, the 4 digits storage location will start with u201CR _ _ _u201D to represent each location
And,
R _ _ _ is:
R = Raw materials
2nd digit = Division (S= Seating, P =Panel, W=Wood, M=Metal and W=Wood)
3rd digit = Rack Number (A, B, C, Du2026 and etc.)
4th digit = Rack Zone - each rack will broken down into zone, each rack can possibility have 2 to 3 zone. 1 Zone can be 1 colume of the Rack
An example of a possible location and its meaning will be
RSA1 = Raw materials warehouse, Seating division, Rack A, Zone 1
RPB3 = Raw materials warehouse, Panel Division, Rack B, Zone 3
The challenge of this is that instead of having 1 Raw Material Storage Location like RMSL, we will have a lot more storage locations each for division of Raw material due to the Rack Number we have as well as the Rack Zone.
Question to Alternative 02:
If we use this alternative, will it impact our future implementation of WM? From design wise, is it feasible?
Please advise what is the best approach and the feasible design on it.
Many thanks in advance.
Edited by: Daimos on May 13, 2009 10:15 AM

Answer 1

Hi, here is the Pro and Co of both approaches:
Method 01: Use existing SLOC and add the Storage Bin info
e.g. SLOC: STM1
         Storage Bin: RSC3, where RS = Rack Seating, C3 = column 3
Pro 01:
It will cause less effort as we only need to use LSMW for material master to add in the Storage Bin data for all material of SCM.
Pro 02:
I have tested out that in TCode MIGO, apart from SLOC, the pertaining Storage Bin data also appear.  Based on my discuss with Xian Chen, sometimes they use MB1C(GR), MB1A(GI) rather than MIGO due to speed issue, I will need to check the field status if can have Storage Bin field APPEAR, if can, it will solve the problem
Con 01:
The Storage Bin information will only appear in MMBE (Stock Overview) but will not appear in the standard SAP Inventory Report (e.g. MB52 Warehouse Stock). To view it from SAP Inventory Report, we may need to customize the standard report to show the new field Storage Bin. It needs Abap effort.
Con 02:
We must have a very good naming convention for Storage Bin. And again, in the above example, if a material is put in SLOC STM1 at Storage Bin RA A1 or C4, it will set a very rigid rule in the future if we need to change it, as I fear that one the Storage Bin has been used up. It will not allow us to change (need to do testing to find out)
Con 03:
Do we have the time to define all the Storage Bin for each SLOC? Operation wise, the store personnel needs to design it
Method 02: Use the new SLOC
Pro 01:
RSA1 = Raw materials warehouse, Seating division, Rack A, Zone 1. More organized. Easy to tell the material is at which  Rack and which Zone of the Rack.
Assumption:
01. we must not have too many rack for one Seating division and also not too many Zone for each
      Division, else it will cause confusion
02. 1 material should stick to 1 Rack 1 zone as much as possible, else later the PP consultant will 
     have hard to to perform GI due to too many SLOC assigned to a material.
Pro 02:
In report wise, we are able to show the SLOC in inventory report. No need to enhance the existing inventory report as we do not use Storage Bin.
Con 01:
If there are too many SLOC creation due to it. It may cause problem for PP perform GI as too many selection available for a material. This can be avoided if stick to the General Rule that one material is tied with one SLOC.
Edited by: Daimos on May 16, 2009 5:07 AM