Kiser Harriss + Envalior: 980+ Labor Hours Saved Through SAP ↔ Codeworks WMS Integration

The Challenge:

A family-owned third-party logistics (3PL) provider operating more than 750,000 square feet of hazmat and non-hazmat chemical storage and transportation had relied on Codeworks Enterprise for more than a decade while also supporting customer-specific WMS environments for several major accounts.

Their warehouse operations were strong. The administrative work behind them was not.

On one of the largest customer accounts — an SAP shop — keeping the ERP and the WMS aligned required heavy manual effort:

• Manual Order Printing: Orders printed from SAP and walked to the warehouse
• Spreadsheet Coordination: Shared spreadsheets used to track operations across departments
• Duplicate Data Entry: The same information re-keyed into SAP and the WMS
• Office ↔ Warehouse Coordination: Manual communication between back-office and floor teams
• Post-Shipment Documents: Labels, BOLs, and packing lists generated from SAP after warehouse work was already complete

On the technical side, SAP and the WMS operated independently — with limited real-time inventory visibility between them — and any integration effort had to be delivered without retraining the warehouse or disrupting an active hazmat operation.

The SC Codeworks Solution:

SC Codeworks facilitated a full integration between SAP and Codeworks Enterprise WMS. The integration strategy was deliberate: automate the administrative chatter between systems, but leave the warehouse's established workflows alone.

The integrated capabilities included:

• Automated Order Integration: Orders transmitted directly from SAP into the WMS
• Inbound Shipment Synchronization: Receiving and inbound updates automatically reflected in SAP
• Inventory Comparison and Reconciliation: Continuous SAP ↔ WMS inventory sync
• Automated Inventory Adjustments: Adjustment communication routed between systems without manual handoff
• In-WMS Shipping Documents: Labels, packing lists, and BOLs generated directly inside the WMS at the point of work
• Operational Email Notifications: Automated, event-driven status emails to the right roles

"Existing warehouse workflows were preserved, no major retraining required, WMS enhanced rather than replaced — elimination of SAP printing dependencies and reduced manual touchpoints across departments."
— Project summary, SC Codeworks engagement

Non-EDI Document Handling

Not every document on a 3PL floor flows through EDI. Tallys and orders created manually by the warehouse needed a way back into SAP without forcing the customer's team to chase paper.

SC Codeworks added an automated notification path: any non-EDI tally or order created in the WMS triggers an outbound email to the SAP customer for manual completion on their side. The 3PL keeps moving on the floor; the customer's SAP team gets a clean, structured handoff instead of a phone call.

Reports Built for SAP’s Unit of Measure

The customer runs SAP in weight; Kiser Harriss runs Codeworks Enterprise in units. Before integration, anyone reconciling daily activity had to do that conversion by hand — line by line, every report.

Daily item-balance and inbound/outbound activity reports were enhanced to present quantities in weight so the SAP-side reviewer sees the totals in the same unit of measure the ERP records. Verification stops being a math exercise; the report and SAP agree on sight.

Built-In Data Integrity Checks

Automation only helps if the data flowing both ways is clean. SC Codeworks embedded a set of integrity checks inside the integration so SAP only ever receives transactions that match its operating rules:

• Receiving tolerances: the WMS allows only the configured over/under quantity per receipt — outside that band, the transaction holds for review
• Plant-specific QA hold: certain plants require product to be received into a QA status until released; the integration enforces that hold before SAP visibility
• Lot code enforcement: every item flowing into the integrated workflow requires a lot code — no lot, no SAP post

Together these checks meant the customer's SAP team stopped reconciling exceptions after the fact — the integration prevented most of them before they ever crossed the system boundary.

The Approach:

A major priority was minimizing disruption to warehouse operations.

Rather than replacing established processes, the integration removed the manual administrative work happening behind the scenes. Operators continued in familiar workflows while automation handled SAP communication in the background.

This approach significantly reduced resistance to change and accelerated user adoption. Teams immediately experienced the benefits of automation without needing to relearn day-to-day operations.

The Benefit:

Before integration, inbound processing required manual data entry and delayed synchronization between SAP and the WMS. Each inbound transaction took approximately 3–5 minutes of manual effort, followed by an additional 20-minute delay before inventory updates posted in SAP.

Outbound operations were even more inefficient. Teams manually verified unit-of-measure conversions between systems and generated shipping documents from SAP after warehouse work was already complete — creating delays, downtime, and unnecessary administrative work.

Following integration, SAP ↔ WMS communication became automated and near real-time.

• Approximately 205 labor hours saved annually on inbound processing
• Approximately 775 labor hours saved annually on outbound operations
• Instant communication between SAP and WMS
• Elimination of spreadsheet-based tracking
• Reduced manual data entry and administrative effort
• Improved inventory synchronization and visibility
• Faster document generation and shipping workflows

Conclusion:

For this 3PL, the largest performance gain wasn't on the warehouse floor — it was in the administrative layer wrapped around it. Automating SAP ↔ WMS communication returned 980+ labor hours to the operation each year without touching the workflows the warehouse team relied on.

The result is a model the operation can extend to additional customer accounts: enhance the WMS, automate the ERP handshake, and leave the floor alone.