Warehouse management - the way ahead

Modern warehouse management systems go far beyond the traditional stock control functions of their predecessors. Alex Mills, managing director of Chess Logistics Technology, reveals all

Interfaces with enterprise management, e-commerce, planning, scheduling, sales order processing, transportation, billing and other applications place the warehouse management system (WMS) at the heart of the supply chain and ensure it has a critical role in the overall success of the business.

This fundamental change in the nature of the WMS is being driven by greater availability of information within the supply chain. This can be accessed, manipulated and analysed to add value and drive the business towards greater efficiency, improved customer service and other forms of innovation. But despite this seamless flow of information through their organisation, warehouse operators should not lose sight of the underlying benefits of the best WMS, including improved productivity, stock control accuracy and real time control.

Progressive organisations recognise the need for productivity gains to stay ahead of the competition, reduce costs and make profits. In the supply chain this translates into new techniques for storing, handling and transporting products to minimise the amount of inventory held and the time lost before its value is released by final delivery and invoicing to the customer. WMSs should provide the functionality to support these business driven processes rather than limiting or constraining the options to the warehouse operator. They must also enable more efficient and automated use of information so that the productivity of the warehouse management function is itself increased. This means that there must be new ways of collecting and using information, either in the warehouse itself or through integration with other elements of the enterprise information system.

Many of the recent developments in warehouse management technology reflect these changes. The latest systems incorporate versatile interfaces to simplify integration with a variety of applications and functionality to support innovative supply chain practices.

shorter cycles

This helps to simplify and reduce the amount of development required to integrate advanced warehouse management capability with other corporate applications. The objective is to provide complete control over the interface process, reduce operating costs and enable shorter development cycles for faster system implementation. The inherent value of the warehouse management systems to the overall supply chain is enhanced and productivity of support staff increased.

The benefits of RF technology and automatic identification techniques such as bar coding are well understood but more advanced facilities are now available. Wireless speech recognition technology now supports 'hands-free' stock control operations for improved accuracy, efficiency and productivity.

information usage

The staff receive spoken instructions direct from the WMS and issue vocal responses. This removes the need to use truck-mounted or hand-held RF terminals, read instructions from a screen or input keyed responses, and lets staff concentrate on handling and picking tasks. Less time is spent interacting with the computer and more on real work without losing any of the data accuracy and inventory control benefits of a normal RF based warehouse management system.

Although productivity gains offer some key benefits to any organisation there is a growing realisation that information readily available from the WMS can add significant value throughout the supply chain. This means, for example, that warehouse managers can look at throughput volumes, measure performance and perform labour planning calculations to help streamline warehouse, distribution and logistics operations for maximum efficiency.

Some systems provide dedicated modules or components that build on existing features as well as introducing new functionality to provide the dynamic targeting and forecasting tools needed to add value to existing warehouse and logistics operations. Functionality such as this may lead to novel, data driven intelligent decision making based on information from the warehouse and across the enterprise.

There is no doubt that many of the current trends will continue into the future because there will always be room for improvement. Some of these may be on the margins, but there will be other as yet unforeseen ways of utilising information from throughout the supply chain to enhance overall business performance. It is clear that more advanced facilities to capture, use and share information will emerge.

close integration

Speech recognition systems are still in their infancy, although some successful implementations have been seen in the past year. Low cost smart RFID tags will add another dimension.

But the biggest factor in the development of supply chain management may be the greater emphasis on value added elements. In other words, using the information available from within the WMS to enable better business decision making. For example, more effective allocation of staff and other resources will help minimise labour costs but also match people to the tasks they perform best. Information from the WMS can be used to identify areas for improvement, often done by experience at the moment, but surely possible using intelligent software that analyses and predicts future capacity requirements based on real information.

Tools that allow warehouse managers to simulate 'what if' scenarios to help plan changes to supply chain practices are relatively scarce at the moment but may well soon be commonplace.

WMSs may need to respond by providing greater order picking flexibility. This will be particularly important for products that are delivered through local Ômicro hubsÕ or in conjunction with real world businesses such as supermarkets and filling stations at unusual times of the day or night

Closer integration of Enterprise Resource Planning and order processing will promote new forms of business collaboration and partnerships, enabling manufacturers, for example, to realise the much vaunted but as yet largely unseen virtual enterprise based on a value chain stretching from raw material to consumer. There is also much potential for closer integration of the warehouse management function with downstream elements such as vehicle loading, scheduling and routing technologies to enable greater utilisation of capital intensive equipment.