Selecting the right warehouse management system (WMS) is a crucial step in optimizing your logistics operations. In an era of rapid technological advancements and increasing customer demands, an effective WMS not only minimizes costs but also enhances efficiency and boosts customer satisfaction.
1. Introduction to WMS
Increasing customer demands, the growth of omnichannel fulfillment and crippling labor shortages have made a strong case for managing distribution center operations via an advanced warehouse management system (WMS) that increases speed, efficiency and accuracy.
It’s become virtually impossible to profitably run a warehouse without an advanced WMS solution. And any digital system is an improvement over slow, inefficient manual processes. However, choosing the right solution can help you maximize not only the return on your technology investment — but the return on your warehouse investment, from labor to inventory.
But, with so many WMS offerings available today, how can your organization choose the right one? This buyer’s guide offers a helpful, straightforward discussion of the key WMS capabilities available today — and how each can help your business address its most critical challenges.
Advanced Warehouse Management Systems Provide the Solution
Enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), optimization engines and automation, advanced WMS solutions help companies manage the challenges of omnichannel commerce, resource shortages and demand volatility.
Warehouse management systems help companies make informed decisions, in real time, that balance service, cost, sustainability and other objectives. They intelligently prioritize activities, identify exceptions and support autonomous operations to keep the warehouse running optimally, every hour of every day. By creating real-time, digital connectivity across warehouse operations, WMS solutions enable visibility and responsiveness from the extended supplier network to the final customer.
Today’s busy DC operations are far too critical, complex and fast-moving to manage using manual processes, paperwork and consumer-grade tools like spreadsheets. Warehouse management systems unleash the power of data science and digitalization to ensure that every decision is the right one — and that all decisions are executed instantly.
2. What is WMS?
What Exactly Is a Warehouse Management System?
A WMS is a software platform that collects realtime information on all the moving parts of a DC, regardless of size or operating model.
The WMS shows the real-time status of orders, inventory, labor, robotics, physical assets and other resources. It helps managers see what’s happening now, predict what will happen next, and manage operations for speed, productivity and profitability despite disruptions. It supports the measurement and continuous improvement of key performance indicators (KPIs).
But that’s just the beginning. Advanced WMS solutions are also capable of orchestrating resources, assigning and prioritizing physical tasks, and adjusting in real time as conditions evolve. By leveraging a best-in-class WMS, companies can transform disconnected warehouse assets and processes into a seamless unit, focused on delivering fast, efficient, profitable fulfillment.
3. Use This Checklist To Ensure Your WMS Has the Right Capabilities
Today’s crowded WMS marketplace has created both competition and confusion. Every software provider has its claims about what its WMS solution can deliver. But, because AI, ML, automation and other technologies are rapidly and continuously evolving, not all WMS solutions are created equal. Some deliver far more features and functionality than others.
There are four “must have” capabilities that every WMS should deliver, at a minimum:
Ability to direct work
Flexible rulesets
Omni-channel capabilities
Extensibility
Two other capabilities can be classified as “would be nice to have” in terms of maximizing the return on investment:
Execution capabilities
End-to-end awareness
Beyond these six capabilities, it’s essential to find a vendor with hundreds of customer implementations, a track record of success, industry recognition and aggressive R&D investments.
Ability to direct work
Modern warehouses are characterized by nonstop changes in staffing levels, inventory positioning, equipment availability and work assignments. Today’s omnichannel environment means that priorities are shifting constantly.
The ideal WMS solution includes tasking automation engines that gather real-time, 24/7 operations data, flag issues and generate an autonomous response. As conditions evolve, so do labor schedules and task assignments, driving a fluid, responsive and profitable warehouse. Operations are tied to a probabilistic demand forecast, but the warehouse can react to changes quickly and automatically, as tasks are re-assigned and new priorities take precedence.
The fast-moving nature of warehouse operations exceeds the capabilities of human cognition. Driven by AI and ML, the right WMS continuously identifies opportunities for efficiency and cost savings, then autonomously unlocks them to optimize daily operations for service and cost in real-time.
Flexible Rulesets
As it autonomously assigns tasks and manages the moving parts of the warehouse, the WMS is guided by business rules and constraints. The challenge is that those guiding principles are constantly evolving, based on real-time supply and demand changes.
A best-in-class WMS accommodates a broad range of rulesets that span the warehouse. Rules might be aimed at promoting sustainability, protecting profit margins, meeting customers’ service-level agreements (SLAs), maximizing scarce labor resources or achieving other strategic objectives. They might also be based on practical considerations like aging inventory, space constraints or the physical layout of the warehouse.
The WMS must be extremely fast and flexible in its ability to accommodate changing decision parameters. Warehouse managers should be able to easily and intuitively “fine tune” WMS engines to balance multiple objectives and achieve excellence across many aspects of performance.
Omni-Channel Capabilities
Omni-channel and hyper-local requirements have transformed virtually every aspect of warehouse operations, including foundational network models. Large, highly automated DCs will always be a critical component of the distribution network, but increasingly companies are also relying on localized fulfillment nodes such as pop-up DCs, dark stores and in-store fulfillment centers.
The optimal WMS solution is built to support both traditional DC operations and these newer models via adaptive fulfillment and warehousing capabilities. For example, the WMS should enable the rapid activation and onboarding of staff, physical assets, inventory and processes to support these new operating models. Because local demand is a moving target, companies should be able to leverage the WMS to quickly launch new pilot sites.
Look for streamlined adaptive workflows, intuitive mobile user interfaces, seamless technology extensions and updates, and other features that enable network growth and agility.
Extensibility
An ideal WMS will be delivered via the cloud and supported by specialized, scalable microservices that easily and cost-effectively extend its capabilities and are built to optimize today’s complex, fast-moving distribution networks. Upgrades should be seamless and frictionless to ensure the WMS solution always reflects the newest, most innovative capabilities.
A software-as-a-service (SaaS) based architecture not only supports rapid deployment and easy extensibility, but it also enables tight integration with other systems in the business — along with both internal and external databases. A cloud native, microservices-based WMS framework also minimizes the total cost of technology ownership and IT staffing requirements.
Every warehouse is unique, so it’s essential that the WMS solution is flexible enough to accommodate extended workflows, third-party data and connectivity across the logistics network.
Execution Capabilities
Warehouse automation is quickly becoming an imperative. But most companies struggle to coordinate execution across humans, robots and static automation to deliver the right work to the right resource at the right time — resulting in decreased steps, capacity smoothing and operational excellence.
A warehouse execution system (WES) is a value added extension of the core WMS, bringing together, or interleaving warehouse tasking solutions and robotics platforms in a dynamic environment. The WES gathers real-time, prioritized insights and provides prescriptive recommendations that keep the warehouse running smoothly and profitably, no matter how dramatically operating conditions evolve minute by minute.
A WES capability also streamlines the process of onboarding new robotics and incorporating them into the intelligent assignment of work in the warehouse.
End-to-End Awareness
Optimizing the warehouse as a stand-alone capability delivers many benefits, including cost reductions, process efficiencies, service improvements, increased labor productivity and more sustainable practices.
But true logistics transformation can only be achieved by connecting the WMS to the transportation management system, order management system, yard management system and other advanced supply chain solutions.
Ideally, the WMS vendor will deliver a shared platform that enables this tight integration, as well as data services that are shared by all logistics stakeholders. Across the logistics network, stakeholders can share a single view of order volumes, inventory levels, asset utilization, labor availability, cost constraints and disruptions.
Enabled by end-to-end visibility and awareness, companies can drive a synchronized, orchestrated response across multiple functions. Iterative planning and re-planning, conducted at the enterprise level, creates a new level of supply chain resiliency.
Blue Yonder: Established Leadership in Warehouse Management
Based on hundreds of customer success stories, decades of experience, and the industry’s broadest and deepest WMS software portfolio, Blue Yonder is an acknowledged leader that should be on your shortlist.
From its proven Warehouse Management and Transportation Management solutions to exciting new microservices like Warehouse Execution and Yard Management, Blue Yonder understands the challenges associated with modern logistics — and has the purpose-built solutions to answer evolving challenges.
Warehouses continue to change and evolve. So Blue Yonder is constantly improving its capabilities to meet emerging challenges in warehouse optimization. Blue Yonder is investing more than $1 billion in R&D to ensure its solutions continue to represent the industry’s most advanced, comprehensive and interoperable platform for warehouse optimization.
About TSL
Total Solutions Logistics Company Limited (TSL) is continuously innovating in technology and supporting Vietnamese enterprises in building an integrated logistics network. By creating an ecosystem that optimizes resources, TSL is helping businesses expand their reach both in regional and international markets. TSL is deeply involved in various fields such as 3PLs, retail, distribution, manufacturing, and e-commerce.
As the official distributor for leading brands like Blue Yonder and SOTI in Vietnam, TSL offers comprehensive solutions for warehouse management, transportation management, and other supply chain management needs. Beyond software solutions, TSL also provides barcode equipment from Honeywell and Zebra, ensuring seamless integration into production lines. Additionally, TSL offers consulting services and technological infrastructure to help businesses achieve international standards in all operations.
Your business looking for WMS solutions to improve performance?
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Number: Ms. Quyên - (+84) 909 568 064
Email: sales.admin@tsl-group.vn
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