INFORM, an internationally active optimization specialist and software developer, announced its collaboration with the management consultancy, Brandt & Partner, to develop a smart solution for integrating sampling into SAP’s Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) module.

INFORM GmbH, one of the world’s leading providers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven optimization software for digital decision making and agile operations, has developed a smart solution to optimize inventory sampling processes within the SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) module. Working with Brandt & Partner, a prominent management consultancy and SAP integrator, INFORM’s inventory sampling manager for SAP EWM effectively streamlines the stocktaking process within the EWM together with INVENT XPERT in SAP’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, S/4HANA. 

The inventory sampling manager for SAP EWM was developed to address the common, reoccurring challenges users experienced in integration projects with SAP EWM. By developing a standard solution as a module integrated in SAP EWM, these issues have been effectively addressed. Further, the solution helps mitigate workflow processing problems by ensuring that transactions are processed in the correct order for inventory sampling. Armed with workflow support and backed by the experience and consulting services brought to the project by INFORM, users correctly utilize the solution, adhering to the optimum process.

With the inventory sampling manager for SAP EWM, the statistical inventory sampling software INVENT XPERT is optimally integrated, so that SAP users can continue to work safely while performing their inventory tasks even after switching to the new EWM. In addition, the solution now enables inventory sampling to be performed at the handling unit (HU) level to further boost efficiency and productivity. 

According to Christian Gṻnther, head of the inventory sampling business segment at INFORM, “Counting at the handling unit (HU) significantly reduces the counting effort required in inventory sampling. In a classic warehouse inventory, the customer stores several HUs in one storage bin and would have to count all HUs in the bin selected as a sample. With HU sampling, only one HU has to be counted.”

Gṻnther also noted another key benefit of the HU sampling facilitated by INFORM’s solution stating, “EWM is often used in automated warehouses equipped with conveyor technology to move the HUs to a picking/counting location. A conventional warehouse inventory would require the whole content of the bin to be removed from the warehouse for counting. With the HU inventory, only one HU is involved, and it can be processed in the usual storage and retrieval process.”

INFORM introduced its inventory sampling manager, a tool in the SAP EWM for connection to the INVENT XPERT Web last March at the international trade show, LogiMAT. It has since been deployed by eight customers. INFORM has now gained customers across diverse industries including many involved in highly technical manufacturing sectors such as aviation, electronics, vehicles, and mechanical engineering.