Warehouse Management options when upgrading to S/4HANA

Continue using WM or upgrading to EWM

Many companies are converting their old ECC system to SAP S4/HANA, and rightfully so. If this is the case for your company and you’re currently using WM – the WMS linked to ECC – then you have another big decision ahead of you. Can you keep operating WM, or should you upgrade to SAP’s new EWM?

There is no magical upgrade button from WM to EWM, it’s an entirely new implementation. If you’re using WM now and you’re upgrading to S/4HANA, you need to decide if you want to upgrade to EWM as well. SAP’s strategic and recommended warehouse solution is EWM in S/4HANA, either embedded or decentralized. Here are your options:

Use the basic EWM along with S/4HANA

Basic EWM is included in the S/4HANA license. Here are the main advantages of basic EWM:

• No additional license costs!
• EWM is task-oriented: divide the labor/activities in your warehouse in a smarter and more efficient way.
• EWM runs on all mobile devices. Very handy for all the available Fiori apps.
• SAP best practices are available for EWM. That means accelerated implementation!

Upgrade to the advanced EWM

The release of EWM comes with two license models. Besides the basic EWM mentioned above, you can also opt for the advanced EWM.

This carries an additional license cost, but the advanced system offers some important extra functionalities:

• Material Flow System (MFS): integration with automatic warehouses.
• Cross-docking: pick goods directly from the staging area.
• Wave management: group your warehouse requests to improve picking efficiency.
• Cartonization planning: fill up your cartons as efficiently as possible during picking.

Continue use WM (Stock Room Management as of 2026)

Is your WM solution 100% tailor-made to your warehouse? Then you probably don’t want to upgrade (yet).
The good news: SAP keeps supporting WM until December 31, 2025. That means it will keep working the same way it did in ECC. The downside: there are no more improvements, no Fiori apps, no new dashboards …

As of 2026, WM will still be included in S/4HANA, yet under a new name: Stock Room Management. This is basically a light version of WM with reduced functionalities. As long as you’re not using any of these functionalities, you don’t need to upgrade to EWM:

• Cross-Docking
• Decentralized WM
• Task and Resource Management
• Value Added Services
• Warehouse Control Unit Interface
• Wave Management
• Yard Management

Need help making the right decision?

Do you have warehouses that run on WM? No worries, even in S/4HANA you can still use it until the end of 2025. This gives you still some time to convert your WM system to a brand new EWM-implementation. No need for EWM? In some cases, you can keep running WM within S/4HANA with Stock Room Management. Is your situation different from the above mentioned scenario’s? We are happy to look at your needs and possibilities for your warehouse management.