Optimize, Automate, and Accelerate Your Warehouse Operations with SAP EWM
In today’s efficiency and customer-focused economy, warehouse performance can define customer satisfaction, market competitiveness and profitability. All warehouses face the challenge of maintaining high performance while reducing costs and covering industry-specific requirements.
SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) enables full control over warehouse operations — managing goods receipt, storage, picking, packing, and shipping in real time.
As a global SAP specialist, msg helps enterprises implement, transform, migrate, and optimize their warehouse operations with SAP EWM to achieve measurable cost reductions, operational excellence, resilience, and strategic agility.
Your contact
Jarrett Leesch
VP Supply Chain Sales
Typical warehouse challenges addressed by SAP EWM
- Manual, error-prone logistics processes increasing cost and risk
- Siloed warehouse data across multiple systems
- Lack of workforce productivity insights and inventory traceability
- Difficulty scaling operations across geographies
- Growing demand for digital fulfilment and rapid turnaround
- Labor shortages in the warehouse
- Increasing automation and robotics usage requires process orchestration
Benefits of SAP EWM
- Comprehensive coverage of warehouse requirements
- Real-time execution of complex logistics processes
- Seamless integration with SAP S/4HANA, SAP TM and connected systems
- End-to-End support for all types of automation, robotics, and IoT-driven operations
- Multi-site scalability for global distribution networks
- Embedded analytics for strategic decision-making
- End-to-End collaboration with business partners
Business Value - Tangible Outcome
Whether you are a C-level executive, warehouse director or shopfloor worker, SAP EWM provides you with tangible results on all levels.
Efficiency Gains
Reduce operational costs and manual handling
Process Automation
Eliminate redundancies through intelligent workflows
Real-Time Transparency
Track every order, item, and resource digitally
Scalability
Support business growth through modular design
Sustainability
Optimize storage use, energy consumption, and transport planning
Compliance
Adhere to regulatory requirements
Our SAP EWM Service Portfolio
We help customers design, implement, and continuously optimize digital warehouse operations. From initial assessment to post-go-live performance management, our approach provides you with a lifetime partner.
- Warehouse process maturity assessment and gap analysis
- SAP EWM Fit-Gap and PoC workshops
- End-to-End Process design (Design2Operate, Plan2Produce)
- Designing of SAP EWM MFS connectivity to warehouse automation
- WMS Business case development and ROI modelling
- Solution architecture and roadmap planning for implementations and transformations
- System landscape and integration strategy (with SAP S/4HANA or ERP)
- SAP EWM Best Practices and Deployment
- SAP EWM Release upgrades
Accelerate SAP EWM adoption with a structured, value-focused approach — from blueprint to go-live. Our experts ensure your SAP EWM deployment supports your supply chain strategy from day one.
- Project and program management following SAP Activate Methodologies
- SAP EWM blueprinting and process design (inbound, outbound, storage, yard, labor, slotting, etc.)
- SAP EWM system configuration and master data design
- Integration setup (SAP ERP, TM, MES, automation systems, IoT)
- SAP EWM MFS implementation and technical integrations with warehouse automation
- Testing scenarios, user acceptance, and change validation
- SAP EWM individual development and Add-ons
Transform and migrate seamlessly from SAP WM or legacy WMS systems to SAP EWM. Using accelerators and data governance frameworks, we reduce downtime and risk throughout your transformation journey.
- Transformation/migration planning and impact analysis
- Data mapping, conversion, and cleansing
- Process redesign for flexible warehouse models
- Cutover execution and go-live transition support
- Post-migration stabilization
Extend functionality through custom configurations and industry-specific enhancements that give you a competitive edge.
- Process extensions for automation, robotics, and storage systems
- Leveraging SAP EWM MFS for integration with warehouse storage systems and IoT devices
- Individual development (i.e. custom RF screens, mobile transactions, or Fiori apps)
- Enhancements for advanced reporting and analytics
- Functional and technical user training
- Warehouse operator training on RF/UIs and automation systems
- Change management planning and onboarding facilitation
- Documentation and knowledge transfer
Ensure lasting agility with continuous support, proactive monitoring, and optimization services focused on improving your warehouse KPI performance post-deployment.
- Application management support (AMS) under SLAs
- Incident resolution and root-cause analysis
- Preventive maintenance and patch management
- Regular upgrades, SAP S/4HANA EWM migrations, and release management
- 24/7 monitoring of critical warehouse processes
- Change management and continuous improvement tasks
Why msg is the right partner for you
- SAP Gold Partner and proven global scale delivering SAP logistics solutions across regions
- SAP Supply Chain and SAP EWM Certified Experts: Deep technical and functional expertise
- End-to-End SAP expertise enabling full integration of the Supply Chain
- Accelerated deployment: Leveraging Best Practices, industry specific process templates and automation accelerators
- Governed delivery: Predictable outcomes via standardized project methodologies
- Value continuity: Full lifecycle engagement from design to optimization
SAP EWM Features
SAP EWM is recognized as one of the top warehouse management systems and is a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. SAP EWM covers your warehouse requirements with features such as:
- Inbound and outbound processing for warehouse operations
- Goods receipt, putaway, picking, packing, and goods issue
- Storage bin and stock management with RF support
- Warehouse tasks, warehouse orders, and basic internal movements
- Inventory counting and stock transparency in the warehouse
- All core EWM capabilities plus advanced warehouse process control
- Labor management and workload monitoring
- Slotting and rearrangement for optimized storage strategies
- Yard management and dock appointment support
- Value-added services, kitting, and cross-docking processes
- Material flow system integration for automated warehouse environments
SAP EWM Material Flow System
SAP EWM MFS extends SAP EWM from “managing warehouse work” to “executing material flow” by connecting warehouse process intent directly to automation control — delivering real-time orchestration, transparency, and resilience for high-throughput automated warehouses.
What is SAP EWM MFS?
SAP EWM MFS (Material Flow System) is the warehouse-automation execution layer embedded in SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM). Its purpose is to control, orchestrate, and monitor automated material-handling equipment - for example conveyors, sorters, AS/RS systems, lifts, shuttles, palletizing/depalletizing stations, and automated picking/put-wall areas—using the same operational logic and process context that EWM uses to run the warehouse.
How SAP EWM MFS integrates with SAP EWM
SAP EWM MFS is not a separate WMS or WCS! It is part of SAP EWM’s execution capability and is designed to run inside the SAP EWM process model. The integration is therefore “native” in the sense that MFS uses EWM objects, statuses, and monitoring concepts.
- Handling Units (HUs)/totes/pallets as the automation-relevant unit of warehouse tasks
- MFS commonly uses HU-based tracking so that the automation system and EWM “talk about the same thing” (the HU and its identity, content, destination).
- Warehouse tasks, movement logic, and destination determination
- SAP EWM drives what should happen (e.g., replenishment, putaway, staging, buffering, decanting), while SAP EWM MFS supports executing these moves through automated transport routes and equipment decisions.
- Layout-oriented control via resources and “points” in the material flow
- MFS models the automation area using technical entities (e.g., identification points, communication points, segments) to represent where HUs are scanned, routed, or handed off.
- Monitoring & exception handling in EWM context
- Because MFS sits in SAP EWM, operational teams can manage automation-relevant exceptions (blockages, reroutes, missing scans, equipment faults) with SAP EWM monitoring and process context — rather than treating automation events as “outside the WMS.”
What SAP EWM MFS integrates with
SAP EWM MFS is designed to integrate with the warehouse automation and controls the landscape, typically including:
- PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) that run conveyors, diverts, lifts, etc.
- MHE (Material Handling Equipment) control software (vendor control layers)
- SCADA/visualization systems for equipment status and alarm handling
- IoT, sensors and IDs such as barcode scanners, RFID gates, photo cameras, scales, dimension scanners, and label applicators
- Higher-level warehouse automation subsystems (e.g., shuttle systems, AS/RS control, sorter control, conveying systems, cranes, shuttles, high density storage systems like Autostore, carousels, Pick by Light, AMRs (autonomous mobile robotics) and AGVs (automated guided vehicles (AGV), etc.
In many deployments, MFS communicates through standardized message exchange patterns with an MHE layer, which then interfaces to the PLC level — supporting a clean separation between warehouse process logic (EWM) and machine-specific control (MHE/PLC).
Benefits of using SAP EWM MFS
SAP EWM MFS turns SAP EWM into a unified execution platform for both manual and automated flows.
Single execution approach for manual + automated operations
Instead of coordinating a WMS plus a separate automation controller, MFS enables process-consistent execution where automation moves are aligned with EWM warehouse tasks, inventory integrity, and shipping priorities.
Real-time visibility and control with EWM process context
Operations gain end-to-end transparency (where is the HU now, what is next, what is blocked, why) and can manage exceptions with business-relevant impact (order priority, dock schedule, wave status).
Reduced integration complexity and fewer “blackbox systems”
MFS helps avoid custom point-to-point logic by providing an embedded framework for material-flow communication and routing decisions, lowering long-term maintenance risk versus bespoke interfaces.
Higher throughput and more reliable automation execution
With deterministic routing, automated confirmation handling, and standardized exception patterns, MFS supports stable high-volume execution in highly automated distribution centers.
Better agility for changes and expansions
When the warehouse adds new lanes, stations, or automation modules, MFS provides a structured way to extend the material-flow model and rules — supporting scalable modernization without reinventing the control logic.
Operational resilience through exception management
Automation inevitably produces events: missed reads, congestion, diverted items, equipment downtime. MFS supports controlled fallback and recovery scenarios so the warehouse can keep shipping even under constraints.
Ready to modernize your warehouse operations?
Schedule a meeting with our SAP EWM specialists.
Discover how optimized warehouse processes can unlock new efficiency, ensure resilience, and increase profitability.
Jarrett Leesch
VP Supply Chain Sales