SAP WM 2 Step Picking: Optimize your order-picking processes

You run a SAP WM warehouse that ships 200 delivery lines per day, and your forklift operators walk the same aisles three times to prepare three different orders. 2-step picking exists precisely for this: you separate the stock removal from the per-order dispatch, you collect in a single pass everything needed for the time slot’s batch of deliveries, then you split it out in a second step toward each final destination.

On paper, it is trivial. On a project, it always gets stuck on the same pitfalls: an undersized interim storage type, a storage type search misconfigured for operation 2, deliveries too heterogeneous to benefit from grouping. Here I walk you through the full configuration, the concrete end-to-end case, and the field pitfalls I have run into on multi-site WM rollouts.

2-step picking in SAP WM, a concrete definition

In single-step picking, each transfer order represents one customer order: a forklift operator goes to fetch the materials of a given delivery, brings them to the shipping dock, and the delivery is processed. If you have thirty deliveries to prepare in the 2 PM time slot, you generate thirty transfer orders, and your operators go around the warehouse thirty times.

2-step picking changes the logic end to end. The first step, the pick, groups all the requirements of the time slot: if the thirty deliveries require a total of 12 different materials for a total of 480 pieces, you generate a single collective transfer order that removes those 480 pieces from the storage bins and brings them into a buffer area, typically a dedicated Storage Type such as 200. The second step, the allocation, splits out from this buffer area: one TO per delivery, which takes the quantity planned for each order and drops it at the corresponding shipping dock.

This decoupling has a strong consequence: the operator who does the pick does not need to know which delivery those 480 pieces will go to. They remove what is required, full stop. The dispatch business logic is carried by the allocation, which often happens close to the dock and can be driven by a different operator profile. You gain productivity on the pick side (fewer trips, an optimized route across the bins) and you gain accuracy on the dispatch side (verification on a sorting table in the buffer area before dropping at the final dock).

When 2-step picking justifies its rollout

2-step picking is not an automatic gain. It becomes relevant when three conditions add up: a volume of simultaneous deliveries high enough that grouping genuinely cuts the trips, a material mix where several orders share common materials, and a physical warehouse layout that clearly separates the storage area from the dispatch area.

Before switching to 2-step, run the exercise on a real sample: take a typical day, extract the deliveries from the busiest time slot, and look at how many materials are shared across orders. If the material-to-delivery ratio is close to 1, you have nothing to group, and 2-step adds a buffer area and an extra TO for nothing.

SAP WM configuration in 5 steps

The configuration of 2-step picking is done in two distinct SPRO families depending on whether your trigger is a transfer requirement (TR) or a delivery. In WM project practice, you usually activate both to cover Posting Change Notices and commercial outbound flows.

1. 1

   Activate 2-step picking for transfer requirements

   SPRO path:

   Logistic Execution → Warehouse Management → Activities → Transfers → Set up 2-step picking process for Transfer Requirement

   There you find two sub-items: Transfer Requirement Control and Transfer Type Control. The first activates 2-step for the TR types (for example the type that drives the PCNs). The second defines the behavior of the transfer type that will be used for the collection to the interim area.

   

   

   

2. 2

   Activate 2-step picking for shipping

   SPRO path:

   Logistic Execution → Shipping → Picking → Define Relevance for Two-step Picking

   This is the counterpart on the delivery flow side. Here you define on which level (route, shipping point, warehouse) 2-step should be triggered. The most common setting is by warehouse number plus shipping point, which lets you keep 1-step for flows that are not suited to it (express outbound, technical outbound).

   

   

3. 3

   Configure the Storage Type Search for operation 2

   SPRO path:

   Logistic Execution → Warehouse Management → Strategies → Activate Storage Type Search

   This is where you tell SAP where to drop the picked pieces: you create an entry with operation 2 (which corresponds to the 2-step interim) and you enter the target Storage Type, by convention 200 in most projects, but it can be any Storage Type that you have defined as a buffer area.

   

   If you want to understand in detail how the search sequence interlocks with the other tiers (storage section, storage bin type), look at the dedicated article on SAP WM Storage Type Search. The 2-step is only one operation among others in the same strategy table.

4. 4

   Activate the flag on the material master (WM view 1)

   If you want 2-step to trigger only for certain materials, you activate the “2-step picking relevant” flag in the Warehouse Management 1 view of the material master. This is useful when you have 1-step and 2-step flows coexisting in the same warehouse: you can thus exclude very bulky materials that cannot transit through an interim area.

   

5. 5

   Check consistency with the Section and Bin Type cascade

   2-step picking does not live in isolation from the rest of the WM strategy. If you have activated a Storage Section Search or a Storage Bin Type Search on the interim storage type, check that the combination stays consistent. The classic pitfall: area 200 has inherited a section strategy that makes no sense for an interim, and SAP refuses to create the TO. Deactivate section and bin type search on the interim storage type unless you have a precise business need that justifies them.

Concrete end-to-end case: from the PCN to the shipped delivery

Here is how it unfolds in execution, on an example where the trigger is a series of commercial deliveries. The scenario is deliberately minimal so that you recognize each screen. You will find the same sequence by replacing VL06P with LT41 if your trigger is a transfer requirement (typically a Posting Change Notice after a stock rebooking).

1. 1

   Create the group from the deliveries

   Transaction VL06P. You select the outbound deliveries of the time slot (filter on shipping point, route, planned goods issue date) then you use the “Create Group” function from the menu. SAP asks you to name the group and assign a usage: for 2-step picking, it is the standard grouping usage.

   

   

2. 2

   Display the group and trigger the pick

   Transaction LX39. The selection screen asks you for the warehouse and the group number. Once confirmed, you get the 2-step control screen with two distinct sections: Pick at the top, Allocation at the bottom. You start with the Pick section.

   

   

3. 3

   Generate the pick transfer order

   Still in LX39, from the Pick section, you trigger the creation of the collective transfer order. SAP generates a single TO that will remove all the pieces of the time slot and bring them into the interim area, the Storage Type 200 of your customizing.

   

4. 4

   Confirm the pick on the warehouse side

   Once the operator has passed by the source bins and arrived in the interim area, the TO is confirmed via LT12 or directly from LX39. The confirmation materializes the physical transfer: the stock disappears from the source bins and appears in storage type 200.

   

   

   

5. 5

   Dispatch with the allocation

   Back into LX39, the Allocation section this time. You generate one transfer order per delivery, which takes from the interim area the quantity intended for each order and drops it in the final preparation area (usually another interim storage type, such as area 916 or 902 depending on your configuration). Confirmation via LT12 and you can move on to the post goods issue on the delivery side.

The elegance of the model is that you can parallelize the two steps: while one operator does the pick of the next time slot, an operator in the interim area allocates the previous time slot. The theoretical throughput climbs, provided your interim area is sized to absorb the time gap between the two operations.

Field pitfalls to anticipate

Beyond this basic check, here are the three pitfalls that come up most often on a project:

Saturated interim area. If the pick pace is faster than the allocation pace, storage type 200 saturates, and the new pick TOs are blocked for lack of an available bin. This is typically what happens when you launch 2-step without having audited the physical capacity of the buffer area. Practical rule: size the interim area to absorb at least two shipping time slots.

Confusion between shipping group and pick group. SAP uses the word “group” in several places. The group you handle in VL06P is a grouping of deliveries for 2-step control. It is not the same as a wave (which is another grouping logic, more planning-oriented). If your warehouse already uses waves, check that the 2-step group does not break the existing wave logic.

Materials with batch or expiry date. If you do FIFO or management by batch determination on the materials concerned, check that the batch determination is done at the level of the pick transfer order and not at the level of the delivery. Otherwise, two deliveries that request the same material may end up with different batches when they should have shared the same batch, and you break your FEFO logic without noticing it.

2-step picking in WM and in EWM, the key differences

A misconception circulates widely: that 2-step picking would be a specificity of legacy WM, and that EWM would not offer it. That is false. EWM offers its own 2-step picking, in a more modern framework. Here is what changes when you move from one to the other.

In practical terms, on a WM to EWM migration project, 2-step picking is never a 1:1 mapping. You replay the business need (why you do 2-step) before looking at how EWM carries it technically. And you take advantage of the migration to rework design choices that sometimes dated back more than ten years.

“2-step picking is above all a warehouse organization decision. SAP WM or EWM only materializes a choice that must first have been made on the operations side.”

FAQ: 2-step picking SAP WM

2-step picking and the WM cascade, how to articulate them

2-step picking is a special case of the general Storage Type Search mechanism in SAP WM. If you want to understand how the Storage Type → Storage Section → Storage Bin Type cascade interlocks within the overall strategy of a warehouse, look at the article on SAP WM Storage Type Search, which explains tier 1 in detail, and the one on Storage Section Search, which covers tier 2. For tier 3 on bin types, the article Storage Bin Type Search closes the loop.

2-step picking, for its part, lives at the crossroads of the Storage Type strategy and the delivery / transfer requirement flow. It is a pattern that looks simple but demands real operational discipline: a sized interim area, a balanced pick / allocation pace, and well-rehearsed exception procedures (cancellations, shortages). When these three conditions are in place, the productivity gain is immediate and measurable from the very first weeks.

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