A Warehouse Management System (WMS) is an important part of an effective Supply Chain Management system. Every day you receive products, put them away, count them, pick them, and ship them out the door. After that you review what happened, report to clients, bill them, and get paid.

The process works till you realized the operation is big enough to be controlled using conventional means and because the inventory costs business dearly in operating expenses, there is always pressure from the business managers to find a way to put lid to these operating expenses that’s hurting the bottom dollars. On the other hand mismanagement results into lost orders and decreased customer satisfaction.

A need for efficient, productive and accurate means of running a warehouse is required and an investment into the Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) to deliver results with a great return.

Business manager then turn their attention to WMS which is low risk using proven technology with rich functionality to run an efficient and cost-effective warehousing operation at its peak. The biggest challenge is then finding a specialist WMS supplier that is efficient in all it is processes and is a great fit for their warehouse operations.

You will find many vendors but the idea of a WMS is that it uses technology such as RF and bar-coding to automate entire process flow of warehouse right from receiving of goods in the warehouse to finally shipping to customers, automating the process eventually improving efficiency and accuracy, and to better utilize labor resources quite simply to do things better, faster, cheaper.

WMS is more than just bar-coding and RF or batch processing, and a lot more than inventory management and order management.

The NAXTOR-WMS Warehouse and Distribution Management System - an Overview

Whether your warehouse is a thousand square feet or a million square feet, the fundamental challenges are the same: how do you reduce inventory, fill orders fast (and ship them faster), improve accuracy, prioritize the movement of your most profitable goods, maximize worker productivity, minimize wasted space and at all costs keep from having to tell your customers that you don’t have what they need? The answer to all of these challenges is the same: Naxtor’s Warehouse Manager. An extraordinarily powerful and flexible solution, Our Warehouse Manager offers a comprehensive menu of capabilities, and practically infinite flexibility in their application making it an ideal product for virtually every warehousing and logistical operation.

Overall System Diagram

Goods Received

Order Processing/Goods Out

Locations
A fundamental concept in The Warehouse Management System is the Location - the place items are stored. As the Naxtor WMS is a generic system, it must provide flexibility to cope with any type of warehouse and any type of stock. In order to provide such flexibility, the following conceptual areas within the warehouse are used:

• Zones
• Faces
• Bays
• Levels

Example Warehouse - top view

A zone is the largest area within a warehouse. In some warehouses, especially small warehouses, there may be only one zone whereas in other, possibly larger warehouses there may be several zones. You can use zones to separate different departments: you may like to have different zones for departments T01 and T02, for instance. You can also use zones to represent different physical locations within your warehouse: you may have a zone for downstairs and a zone for upstairs. When The Warehouse Management System is installed at your site, a survey will have already been carried out to determine the best system for your needs.

A face represents a picking face: the aisle you walk down when picking goods from a particular bay. Faces generally run parallel to each other. In order to arrive at a particular bay, you must therefore specify a zone, a face and a bay number.

A bay is a vertical multi-level collection of locations. One level within a bay represents the smallest area within a warehouse: a single unique location. A location can store any type of item and could be a pallet, a clothes rail, a bin or even simply floor space. Therefore, to identify a single unique location within your entire warehouse, you must specify the zone, the face, the bay and the level.

This system ensures that The Warehouse Management System is able to work with practically any warehouse configuration. Under some circumstances, however, Naxtor WMS System may have been tailored further to accommodate an unusual situation.

Technical Features Includes

• Wireless hand held devices support
• Cycle Counting
• Inventory Moves & Transfers
• Multiple Units of Measure
• Paperless Picking & Receiving
• Physical Inventory
• Supports Plug-Ins through WiA
• Staging
• Portable data collection terminal Bar Code Printing
• Terminal Messaging
• RF (WiFi) portable data collection terminal Application
• Cross Docking
• Cubing(Space Management)
• Directed Pick & Put away

What is Warehouse Management System (WMS)

WMS Benefits

Advantages for WMS Users

What is Warehouse Management System (WMS)

Warehouse management systems (WMS) are best described as the advanced technology and operating processes that optimize all warehousing functions. These functions typically begin with receipts from suppliers and end with shipments to customers, and include all inventory movements and information flows in between. Warehouse management systems have typically been associated with larger, more complex distribution operations. Small, non-complex distribution facilities have historically not been viewed as candidates to significantly streamline operations and reduce costs. However, even smaller and midsize companies are increasingly recognizing the significance of warehouse management systems in today’s environment of integrated logistics, just-in-time delivery, and e-commerce fulfillment.

In practice, successful WMS solutions are generally designed to merge computer hardware, software, and peripheral equipment with improved operating practices for managing inventory, space, labor, and capital equipment in warehouses and distribution centers. Implementation of a WMS allows a company to increase its competitive advantage by reducing labor costs, improving customer service, increasing inventory accuracy, and improving flexibility and responsiveness. A WMS enables a company to manage inventory in real time, with information as current as the most recent order, shipment, or receipt and any movement in between.

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WMS Benefits

• Faster inventory turns. A WMS can reduce lead times by limiting inventory movement and improving the accuracy of inventory records, thereby supporting a JIT environment. As a result, the need for safety stock is reduced, which increases inventory turnover and working capital utilization.

• More efficient use of available warehouse space. In addition to reducing safety-stock requirements, a WMS can often increase available warehouse space by more efficiently locating items in relation to receiving, assembly, packing, and shipping points. This increased efficiency can both improve productivity and lower inventory holding costs significantly.

• Reduction in inventory paperwork. Implementation of a real time WMS can significantly reduce the paperwork traditionally associated with warehouse operations, as well as ensure timely and accurate flow of inventory and information. Receiving reports, pick tickets, move tickets, packing lists, etc., which are typically maintained as hard copies, can all be maintained electronically.

• Improved cycle counting. Companies can use WMS to capture relevant data (e.g., frequency of movement, specific locations, etc.) to systematically schedule personnel for cycle counts. Such cycle counts not only can improve the accuracy of inventory records for planning purposes, but also can eliminate or reduce the need for complete, costly physical inventories.

• Reduced dependency on warehouse personnel. Implementing a comprehensive WMS facilitates standardization of inventory movements, picking methods, and inventory locations. This standardization helps to minimize reliance on informal practices, resulting in reduced training costs and lower error rates.

• Enhanced customer service. By streamlining processes from order to delivery, companies can more accurately determine product availability and realistic delivery dates. A WMS can automatically identify and release back-ordered inventory and also can reduce returns as a result of increased shipment accuracy.

• Improved labor productivity. A WMS helps optimize material flow, typically by incorporating several inventory picks into one or by “cross docking”. Cross docking is a process that routes incoming shipments to the location closest to the outbound shipping dock, thereby reducing warehouse handling.
  

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Advantages for WMS Users

For Management: WMS can help management to access an instant picture of

• How much inventory exists in the warehouse

• How many orders are currently being shipped

• What are the stages of processing of pending orders

• Staff productivity details

• Goods shipped by the warehouse over any given period of time.

The warehouse management can determine how much inventory exists in the various stages of processing unlike in non-automated warehouse management.

Sales people can determine how much inventory is available and can relate better to the warehouse staff thus bettering their Customer Relationship levels. Customer Managers can reserve inventory for a customer thereby ensuring that it will not be shipped to anyone else. Inventory Managers can track transactions at a very fine detail to diagnose unexpected sudden changes in inventory. For example, if we had thousands of pieces of some SKU yesterday and today we don’t have any, then where did they go? Were they shipped to some other customer? Were they sent to some other warehouse of the company to be shipped from there? Or did they get lost or were picked away? WMS helps answering such problems. The reports generated during checking processes enable policy decision to be taken about the reliability of the suppliers. WMS is designed to be flexible i.e., the process flow of the DC/Warehouse can now be modified easily as business needs change.

For Warehouse Supervisors: Productivity reports for each operator can now be generated and used to implement productivity based remuneration schemes or to fire unproductive employees. For those warehouses that have to cope up with Union problems these reports can help the company tremendously. Efficient tracking of warehouses activities are possible with WMS as it provides a comprehensive set of web-enabled reports detailing all the activities happening in the warehouse and their effect on the inventory management. WMS also helps to detect bottlenecks in operations, which can increase the overall throughput of the warehouse.

For Warehouse Operators: WMS provides graphical user interfaces (GUIs) wherein most of the time the operator has to just scans the barcodes. Default navigation of cursor on the screen mimics the standard business rule. Thus WMS eases the operator’s task and makes the data input process fast, increasing the overall efficiency of the operator. Some programs like Locating and Pulling are especially designed to run on hand-held radio frequency terminals. These terminals make the task of pickers and locators easy, as these are easy to carry. Modern WMS programs have been coded with extra emphasis on scanner based data input to minimize the need for keyboard or mouse input.

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This Blog is designed for individuals in the warehousing business to discuss topics that pertain to warehousing, material handling and distribution. This blog will cover all the leading issues and problems related to optimally running warehousing operations in a supply chain across different industry sectors including manufacturing and retail.

It is an open forum for discussion that encourages warehouse managers to visit often and share their ideas.