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By Wes Coleman | Sept. 3, 2026
Modernizing SAP Warehouse Workflows with a Mobile Execution Layer
SAP supports warehouse operations for many of the world’s leading manufacturers, distributors, and logistics companies. Many of these organizations also rely on Zebra mobile devices to help their frontline teams receive, move, pick, and manage inventory.
While the established SAP mobile software on these devices provides highly robust and comprehensive functionality, its structured, transaction-code-driven workflows often require specialized training.
To get warehouse tasks done, operators often need to learn the exact SAP transaction code and memorize movement types and process sequences. That can require weeks or months of training for new employees. It also requires a lot of manual effort, decision-making, and exception handling. The result is huge burden and inefficiency.
Recently, I sat down with Demian Peterson of Havensight Consulting, a leading developer of SAP mobile solutions for Zebra devices, to find out how Havensight solved these challenges with a vastly better approach to SAP mobile called a warehouse execution layer.
Unlocking a Smoother User Experience in Your SAP Mobile Environment
According to Demian, one of the biggest SAP mobility challenges is that many warehouse operators have learned to work around inefficient processes. The real issue is not necessarily SAP itself. The problem is often how SAP processes are executed at the point of work on mobile devices.
Traditional mobile SAP tools can require workers to make decisions the system should already be making. An operator may need to select the right process, choose the correct transaction, enter information that SAP already knows, and navigate multiple screens before beginning the actual task.
What’s needed is an SAP mobile execution layer that keeps SAP as the system of record but simplifies everything and creates system-guided workflows that eliminate the friction and the need for operators to know transaction codes, process flows, and exceptions. It needs to provide built-in SAP transactions that allow work to be completed far more efficiently.
That’s what led Havensight to develop Inventory One as the world’s first SAP mobile warehouse execution layer.
How Scan-First, Workflow-Driven Execution Changes the Process
Inventory One embeds business rules, validations, and operational guidance directly into each mobile workflow on Zebra and other mobile devices. Rather than expecting the operator to know every step, the system guides the process and makes many of the required decisions automatically.
With a traditional SAP mobile workflow, an operator may need to navigate menus, identify the correct inbound process, choose how to receive the order, enter plant and storage information, select a movement type, and page through individual line items.
Depending on the workflow, completing one receipt can require hundreds or even more than 1,000 individual actions.
With Inventory One, the operator can scan the purchase order and go directly to the relevant packing slip. The system already understands the process, plant, storage location, and movement type. The worker can receive the quantity, print a label, confirm the item, and move to the next line.
This can eliminate dozens or even hundreds of unnecessary clicks, taps or steps. The worker scans an item or document, and the warehouse execution layer determines what needs to happen next.
Instead of requiring operators to interpret SAP, the mobile solution guides them through a faster and more consistent process with far fewer steps and far fewer opportunities for error. It also handles exceptions by guiding the user on what to do in case of a stock-out or other issue without the user needing to know what to do next.
Havensight has also worked with Zebra to integrate on-device intelligence into Inventory One, including optical character recognition (OCR) and mobile dimensioning capabilities to automate key parts of the process.
For example, one customer was receiving approximately 4,000 packing slips each week, and about 40% of those did not contain a barcode. This interrupted the company’s scan-first receiving process and forced operators to manually enter purchase order numbers or leave the receiving area to find the necessary information.
To solve this problem, Inventory One uses Zebra’s on-device OCR capabilities to identify the SAP purchase order number on the packing slip and insert it into the correct field in SAP. This process saves the location approximately 1,000 hours each year while also reducing manual data entry and potential errors.
Using the imaging capabilities of a Zebra mobile device, an operator can also capture the length, width, and height of a parcel or item during the normal receiving process. That information can then be recorded in SAP master data without requiring the worker to move the item to a separate dimensioning station.
To hear the full conversation and learn more about how to streamline SAP warehouse workflows and reduce operator training requirements and burden with Inventory One, watch or listen to the full podcast below.
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