Goal

Explains the role and significance of interim storage type in warehouse management processes.
Demonstration videos explaining the interim storage type determination.

Overview

Every Inventory Management posting in WM managed storage location generates at least one quant in an interim storage area to represent the IM quantity in the connected warehouse number. So interim storage type is a mandatory element which is required to handle the quant that is generated as part of inventory posting.

Role of interim storage type

As explained in organization structure topic, Interim storage type will represent either a physical storage area (goods receipt and goods issue areas where the materials are staged before putaway and picking respectively) or a virtual unit which is required for supporting system transactions (an interim storage area for posting change activities that do not involve a stock transfer).

Determination of interim storage type and bin

As explained in the IM-WM integration topic, the system determines WM movement type based on the IM movement type which in turn is assigned with the interim storage type and bin.

While storage type is always a constant (value in the field Cat), the storage bin can be a constant value or a dynamic bin (indicated by Scr. check box)or a fixed bin(indicated by FxdBn check box) assigned to the storage type.

Shipment Type (A-Stock removal, E-Stock plcmnt , U-Posting chng and X-Whse supervision) determines whether the storage type in Src / Dest /Ret has to be considered as interim storage type. For example, incase of goods receipt process, material has to be staged in the receipts area until they are moved to the final storage bins.  During the putaway process material will be moved from a receipts area to final destination bins where materials will be stored. This means that receipts area is source storage so storage type should be maintained in Src field for the shipment type is E.  Similarly for the goods issue process , material will be picked from the storage bin and placed in a shipping area until they are shipped to the customer. This means that shopping area is the destination storage so storage type should be maintained in Dest filed for the shipment type A.

Requirement Type decides on the preceding document number used to construct the coordinates in case of dynamic bin. Requirement Type is nothing but a key which defines the preceding document category. (E.g. B-Purchase Order, V-Sales Order, K- Cost Center etc,) It is also possible to assign a non-interim storage area, such as fixed bin storage, by activating FixBn indicator if it is required to put a material away directly into a fixed bin (eg. putaway into storage tanks).