WMS not a silver bullet

PERHAPS IT is not so difficult to understand why some companies struggle to get to grips with their WMS. After all, a bathroom fitting company is passionate about bathrooms, not WMS. The same goes for electrical retailers, or ingredients firms. But, passion or not, logistics is nevertheless mission critical for many firms, so it needs to be grasped, including complex products like WMS.

Hatmill consultant Amol Deshmukh says: “Often companies don’t know or understand what they need or how to extract the full potential of their existing system or the one they want to implement.

“A WMS should not be viewed as a ‘silver bullet’ solution to all your organisational challenges. It is an enabler for better managed inventory, productivity and growth. You need to understand your current ways of working and what you want the new way to be, to meet your organisational needs.”

Engagement and buy-in from stakeholders at all levels is vital along with a rigorous testing approach. Training of users, operational readiness and aftercare support are equally important to ensure the success of the project and embedding the new ways of working.

But with so many providers on the market, how do you find the right one for you?

Amol continues: “A capable in-house development team (to accommodate any customisation) and real time support ability are usually good indicators of a reliable partner. Your target operating model needs to align with the WMS provider’s capabilities. A strategic partnership approach needs to be adopted by all parties given the average 5-10 year relationship duration once the WMS is established. You want your suppliers to grow with you rather than become a bottleneck. If required, a weighted matrix should be developed and used to compare the different providers to make the right decision for your company.”

Accessories brand

An example of a WMS helping to fix a specific problem for a client is with accessories brand, BaubleBar. It wanted to scale up operations through B2B, wholesale and D2C channels and used Synergy’s SnapFulfil solution to make operations more efficient and solve some specific issues.

BaubleBar senior operations & customer care director Maritza Mejia, says: “A custom made-to-order (MTO) program allows our warehouse associates to easily pick unique items (without unique SKUs and sales tags) and track individual POs, inventory and order fulfilment through the WMS for the first time. We’ve only started scratching the surface, but with the real time data now available it will be our go-to business model and blueprint for the future and will triple the size of our business.”

Shipping around 30,000 orders per month from its 40,000 sq ft distribution centre, BaubleBar has achieved a 10-fold increase in its pick rate, while maintaining 100% accuracy, since implementing SnapFulfil.

Maritza adds: “Our picking rate went from 40 to 400 per hour, eliminating the previous bottlenecks.”

Adapt and thrive

Very few businesses stand still for long periods, so an important consideration for a customer can be to secure a WMS that can adapt with you as the business changes.

MHE spare parts supplier TVH is one such company. TVH began its warehouse modernisation journey with strategic partner Accenture to develop a roadmap that would enable the company’s growth ambitions by streamlining fulfillment operations globally and designing a warehouse template in line with supply chain strategy.

To achieve this, TVH deployed the Körber K. Motion WMS and WCS. This will involve implementations across five continents and 48 sites, including warehouses in North and South America, Western Europe, South Africa, and China.

TVH vice president of logistics & supply chain international, Kris Thermote, explains: “The ability to rely on one provider for our supply chain technology needs was particularly important to us, which is what we found in Körber. Its varied technology stack also gives us the option to implement further optimisations down the line. Paired with the implementation expertise of Accenture, we’re well positioned to realise our growth ambitions and tap into new opportunities as they come up.”

Lyes Ould Hamouda, EU warehousing lead at Accenture, adds: “At Accenture, we really value our relationship with TVH as a long-term partnership. Our role is to build together the future foundation when we look at their roadmap and ambitions. As the implementation partner, we needed a robust technology solution to support this project plan, which Körber delivers. Owing to our long-term partnership, we are also in an ideal position to carry out future ambitious projects like this.”

Automation integration

It is important to consider how the WMS will interact with other components of the warehouse system, such as automated implementations. This applies to companies large and small, but arguably as companies grow and complexities increase, this becomes ever more vital.

A good example of automated warehousing integration driving a WMS deployment is Alliance Automotive Group France choosing Manhattan Active WMS.

This was implemented alongside Manhattan Active Transportation Management to help meet demand for next day delivery of goods.

The plan centred around the roll-out of a new 50,000 sq m warehouse facility, south of Paris, a hub to serve the entire country.

AAG France transformation director André Falbo says: “Manhattan was selected because it has proven capabilities supporting complex, high-volume, multi-channel processes in an automated environment with the likes of Exotec - a robotic warehouse automation system.

“The maturity of Manhattan’s technology and its roadmap, not to mention the attention to detail provided by the team during the proof-of-concept phases and its ability to seamlessly integrate with automation/robotisation specialists like Exotec were all important factors for us when deciding to unify our warehouse and transportation management offering.”

In addition, the WMS you select must integrate with other systems in your operation. For example, a key requirement for all financial and operational teams is the three way match among the Purchase Order issued, Goods Received and Invoice from the supplier. Integration between the PO software, WMS and Accounts Payable system is instrumental in achieving this requirement and automating this step can help speed up the process.

Hatmill consultant Amol Deshmukh concludes: “Operational measures like Demand Planning, ABC analysis etc. are increasingly being automated. Technologies like voice enabled devices are being deployed across multiple sectors. Your WMS needs to adapt to integrate with these solutions to help meet your business needs and ultimately the needs of your customers.

“There may be other systems that use availability of resources and inventory to make Demand Planning decisions, sometimes using Machine Learning and AI. The ability of the WMS to integrate and interact with the ever growing technical solutions in the supply chain will help the company on its digital journey.”

“A custom made-to-order (MTO) program allows our warehouse associates to easily pick unique items (without unique SKUs and sales tags) and track individual POs, inventory and order fulfilment through the WMS for the first time.”

“The maturity of Manhattan’s technology and its roadmap, not to mention the attention to detail provided by the team during the proof-of-concept phases and its ability to seamlessly integrate with automation/robotisation specialists like Exotec were all important factors.”