In retail, the warehouse is a major part of the business. This is where every product is classified, controlled, organized, packed and shipped. It’s the heart of the company. This is why a WMS can be really helpful!
This step of the supply chain is the last step between you and your customer. Receiving the merchandise quickly, in order, and without any mistakes, makes all the difference in a competitive market.
As a good manager, you always try to find ways to optimize every logistic aspect of the business. That is when the WMS becomes very interesting. It is a very useful tool that will make your business stand out from the competition.
Such a good tool must seem too good to be true. It is in fact very simple to implement. Let us walk you through it.
WMS stands for warehouse management system. It is a software application designed to support and optimize warehouse logistics. It supports the automation of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, warehouse keeping and controls the utilization of resources.
It usually is implemented in the ERP system of the organization. It is a great tool to help manage the warehouse. It also helps the staff by reducing risks of disruption and mistakes.
A WMS uses a database made to support warehouse operations. It provides a variety of features including:
Managing the SKUs
It provides all the information needed for the SKUs (stock keeping units).
Planning
Helps with the daily plan by receiving dock activity and selecting orders to be shipped in the day. It calculates and estimates the labor and vehicles required. In addition to all of this, it also notifies carriers about loading and departure times regarding the customer requirements.
Organizing
It organizes orders for picking. It can be accomplished in many ways following the customer’s needs. The primary objective is to be intentional, to pick the orders in a strategic way.
The initial way of organizing was called wave planning or wave picking, with two objectives.
The first one being the utilization of the dock staging space. By having orders arriving at the shipping dock in trailer load sequence, you have a way more efficient way of managing.
The second one is to create an order of flow that will support the monitoring progress through the day. This way, it eliminates/reduces last minute requests for overtime or delay of carrier departure, etc.
Staffing
This feature assigns staff to work functions and areas, by wave, to minimize staging.
Directing
It ensures the documented processes and procedures in the WMS. This function may also be used to divide individual orders into logical work units. It improves productivity.
Controlling
By providing milestones for management to monitor progress through the day. This way it is possible to respond to problems in a timely way, and report data for performance analysis.
As you can see here, the warehouse management software can be detailed in 4 great benefits that completely change your relationship with inventory and production cycles.
Obviously, by automating data collection with precision, you can now forget about manually entering data. WMS software can eliminate errors and improve the exactness of data by 99%.
A WMS software system will rationalise your warehouse process to solve some logistic problems, and increase productivity. That way, you will be able to fill out orders quicker, and more precisely, so you can retain more clients.
The WMS tracks every information, from pick up to overstock. With that information, employees will be able to fill out multiple orders at the same time.
This kind of tool improves the working conditions of your employees. With the automation of some tasks, the staff can work more easily and efficiently. With your warehouse management system able to generate packing slips, shipping notices, and content labels on boxes before they are wrapped, your team will have time and energy to give to other demanding projects.
If you are still looking for the right warehouse management software or ERP for manufacturing, Bluebbe might be what you need.
We offer different ERP modules to fit your specific needs. Whether it’s for your distribution needs or your manufacturing needs, we definitely have what you need.
You will then be more productive, more profitable, with a team that is available to conquer new summits. A warehouse management system is more than a simple tool. It’s a way to reach new goals.
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