Warehouse and shopfloor software that works in shift operations.

• The scanner dialog needs a manual

  The RF dialog shows transaction codes, abbreviations and fields whose meaning only the key user knows. New colleagues and temporary staff in peak season need days before they can work the device without a cheat sheet. The learning curve costs throughput exactly when it is needed most.

• Error messages nobody understands under time pressure

  "Bin blocked", "quant inconsistent", "HU not found": the message describes the system state, not the next step. At the storage bin the worker is left with cancelling, a correction via the control room or a call to the key user. Each of these paths creates rework.

• The control room shows everything and prioritises nothing

  Open warehouse tasks, waves, faults, conveyor utilisation, all on one page in the same colour. Whoever sits there builds their own sorting in Excel or in their head. Priorities are set by loudness rather than urgency.

• Excel next to the WMS

  Inventory differences, special orders and returns run in lists because the system offers no usable path for them. The result is media breaks and duplicate data entry, and the stock in the system no longer matches the shelf.

• Shift change without handover in the system

  What the early shift half-finished lives in heads, on notes or in a chat. The WMS knows the status but does not show it in a way that lets the late shift know in two minutes where to start. Knowledge is lost at every shift boundary.

• Hypercare turns into a flood of tickets

  After go-live come tickets that are really usability problems: wrong postings caused by ambiguous dialogs, processes that run differently on the forklift than in the specification. The customizing team fixes symptoms while the cause stays in the dialog.

• SAP EWM / SAP WM
• WMS and warehouse control systems
• RF framework and RF dialog
• MDE, scanner technology, Mobisys MSB
• Forklift terminal
• SAP Fiori / UI5
• Warehouse management, warehouse logistics, material flow
• Shopfloor
• Control room (Leitstand)
• Picking: pick-by-scan, pick-by-voice, pick-by-vision
• Fit-gap analysis and customizing
• Key user
• Go-live, cutover, hypercare
• Media breaks and duplicate data entry

SAP EWM

Extended Warehouse Management, SAP's warehouse management module, embedded in S/4HANA or run decentrally; successor to SAP WM. Our concepts target the dialogs that warehouse staff and the control room see, not the customizing behind them.

RF framework

The part of SAP EWM that delivers the dialogs for radio-frequency terminals and scanners; logic and presentation are separated, and screens can be adapted via display profiles. This is where it is decided whether a dialog works without a manual.

MDE

Mobile data entry (Mobile Datenerfassung): scanners, handhelds and forklift terminals used for postings in the warehouse. Requirements for the dialog: one-handed operation, gloves, legibility in noise and poor light.

Control room (Leitstand)

The workplace where warehouse control and fault handling come together: open tasks, waves, conveyor technology, exceptions. We design it following Endsley's situation-awareness model (1995): perceive, comprehend, project.

Fit-gap analysis

Comparison between the system standard and the warehouse processes; gaps are closed through customizing, development or process change. We deliver the part that shows where the standard dialog overwhelms the worker at the bin.

Key user

Experienced warehouse staff who test and train in the project and are the first point of contact after go-live. A key-user concept governs selection, relief from line duties and the escalation path into the project.

Hypercare

The phase right after go-live when project team and vendor are present on the shopfloor in force. From the user's point of view, the last chance to fix dialog errors before workarounds become habit.

Media break

Any change of medium within a process: scanner to paper note, WMS to Excel, phone call to re-posting. Every break costs time and creates discrepancies between system stock and shelf.

Usability

Per ISO 9241-11:2018, the extent to which specified users can use a system in a specified context of use effectively, efficiently and with satisfaction. For us, context means: late shift, gloves, time pressure.

1. 01

   Design within the platform, not beside it

   For an intralogistics company we built a project hub exclusively from native SharePoint and Teams components. The constraint was the advantage: the client's team maintains and extends the system itself. The same holds for EWM: an interaction concept that ignores the RF framework is never implemented.

2. 02

   People think in orders, not in tables

   In the project hub, users thought in project and customer, not in document libraries; the navigation had to follow. In the warehouse, staff think in order, bin, pallet and shift, not in transaction codes and storage types. An information architecture organised by the warehouse's own terms saves more training than any quick guide.

3. 03

   The real problems only surface after weeks on the floor

   In steam-turbine manufacturing the core problems were not found in interviews but after months on the line and creating manufacturing routings in SAP ourselves. A workshop shows what people say about their work; a shift on the warehouse floor shows what they do. That is why every project starts with observation.

4. 04

   Excel next to the system is a requirement, not disobedience

   The list next to the WMS exists because the system owes an answer: where is my order, whose turn is it, what is open? In manufacturing, paper lists and highlighters only became redundant once the interface answered the question itself. We read every shadow list as a specification for the missing dialog.

5. 05

   Who sees what must be in the concept

   In the project hub, sensitive project data needed its own permissioned layer instead of visibility for everyone. In the warehouse this means: the control room sees something different from the forklift driver, the vendor something different from the key user. An interaction concept without a role and visibility model produces tickets later.

6. 06

   Templates beat copy-paste

   In SAP, engineers copied old manufacturing routings and changed details by hand; a template library with modular building blocks replaced the guessing game. The same applies in the warehouse to special orders, returns and inventory differences: recurring exceptions need a defined dialog, not a workaround passed on at every shift handover.

Frequently asked questions

Do you replace the SAP EWM consultant or the WMS vendor?

No. Customizing, configuration, development and interfaces stay with the SAP EWM consultant, WMS logistics consultant or vendor. We are responsible for usability: dialog and interaction concept, tests with warehouse staff, key-user concept, training and hypercare from the user's point of view. In practice we sit in the same project team and deliver into the functional specification.

Do you also do ABAP, Mobisys MSB or Fiori development?

No. We write the dialogs so that developers and the customizing team can implement them directly, and we test the result. For Mobisys MSB, the RF framework or Fiori/UI5 we stay within what the technology allows, so no concept is created that cannot be built.

At which project phase is it best to bring you in?

Most effective before or during the fit-gap analysis, because observation on the warehouse floor can then still feed the functional specification and the requirements document. Realistically we are often called shortly before go-live or during hypercare, when tickets pile up. Even then, an error analysis on the device helps prioritise the fixes.

How do you test scanner dialogs with warehouse staff without disrupting operations?

In the test system with the real devices and real orders, ideally during the participants' own shift, 30 to 45 minutes per person. Five to eight staff per round are enough to find the severe errors; we plan release from duties with warehouse management around peak times.

What can UX still contribute during hypercare, once the system is live?

Sorting the tickets. A large share of reports after go-live are usability problems, not system errors: ambiguous messages, dialogs that run differently on the forklift than planned. Whoever recognises them fixes them quickly with message texts, display profiles and quick guides, and prevents workarounds from becoming habit.

Do you only work with SAP EWM or also with other WMS?

Both. The problems at the storage bin are system-independent: error messages, dialog sequence, prioritisation in the control room, shift handover. We work with SAP EWM/WM as well as with vendor-specific WMS and warehouse control systems; what matters is that the vendor or customizing team is at the table.

How do you work with staffing agencies and project platforms?

Project-based or interim, remote-first with on-site shares, hourly or daily rate on request.