Warehouse Management Systems: Why Is Term Paper

The use of analytics for redefining inventory
strategies based on greater visibility and more efficient optimization of
resources is yielding a 20 - 30% reduction in inventory carrying costs,
according to research on this best practice done by Aberdeen Group (22) in
its report, Best Practices in International Logistics. The study concludes
that greater visibility of inventory dynamics with analytics and better
planning coordination with manufacturing, suppliers and buyers can
manufacturers together can enable order management systems to be more
effective through the use of a more integrated WMS platform.
Integration with and synchronization between a state-of-the-art WMS and
other critical systems in an organization including the CRM, Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Planning, Pricing, and Service all
must contribute to the highest level of inventory accuracy possible.
Organizations that commit to implementing a WMS at a strategic level are
doing so to first create a more agile warehouse environment to support
customer-specific demands.
While in previous generations of WMS systems, the main dynamic forcing
change has been the need for controlling costs and for accounting for
inventory, the state-of-the-art WMS today is being used for making an
organization more capable of responding quickly and accurately to the needs
of customers. This demand-driven aspect of WMS implementations is also
being increasingly built on existing facilities that are being re-designed
to better support optimization logic of these WMS systems. Another dynamic
forcing the growth of state-of-the-art WMS systems is the need for
increased visibility to all warehouse activities, including inventory and
order status. With the increasingly strong level of analytics available
from software vendors, many organizations are opting to create scorecards
to measure the performance of their WMS systems and benchmark them over
time. A side-benefit of this high level of quantification is the ability
to track warehouse employee productivity over time, find those processes
that need to be better managed so warehouse employees will be more
efficient and overall, and cut down on the level of turnover in warehouse
operations.
What is most fascinating about the use of state-of-the-art WMS systems in a
modern warehouse is the critical role it is playing in the context of
serving as a platform for future technological expansion. As has been
noted extensively in this paper, WMS-based analytics including the use of
dashboards is now a best practice. In addition, slotting and layout
optimization is also a WMS strategy that is being used to further support
fulfillment and time-to-customer metrics performance. Best-in-class WMS
systems are also being expanded to support cross-docking and flow-through
support, RFID and bar code tagging support and data storage, labor
management systems and voice-directed technology. All of these business
strategies and technologies built upon a WMS platform, making them
accessible across an organization.
In summary, there are many reasons why a state-of-the-art WMS is critical
in any modern warehouse, and several have been provided in this paper. It
is in the balancing of customers' higher levels of expectations for
responsiveness, the need for generating a higher level of ROI on the
investments in warehouse facilities, and the need for ensuring the highest
transaction levels possible on inventory all leading to the adoption of
state-of-the-art WMS systems.
References:

Aberdeen Group (2006). Best Practices in International Logistics.
Aberdeen Group Research Report , January, 2006. Boston, MA. Page 22.

Manufacturing Engineer (2005). The goal of synchronized…