A Warehouse Management System (WMS) should support your current way of operating and provide the flexibility to enable you to change your processes as your business grows. WMS software is flexible, customizable, and scalable. On a day-to-day basis, it will provide you with insights that will lead to incremental changes that improve efficiency over time.

The day will come, however, when a major change to your processes will make sense. This could mean the introduction of new equipment like an Automated Storage/Retrieval System, or it could mean switching to an entirely different picking strategy. A solid Warehouse Management System investment will be able to meet all of the requirements of your possible future processes as well as supporting your current ones. Let's look at some considerations in Receiving and in Picking as examples.

Receiving

Many warehouses have a fairly straightforward receiving process. Items are received, checked against a PO and then go directly to putaway. Just about any Warehouse Management System can handle a process like this. Some warehouses, however, have more complicated workflows. Some parts may need to be inspected upon receipt before they are put away. Others may need to be broken down and repacked. It's possible that others need to go through both steps. The potential for variation is significant, and your WMS needs to be capable of handling anything that you are going to want to throw at it down the road.

Picking

The most common type of picking is order picking where a worker picks a single order in its entirety. A WMS can add lots of value in this scenario by routing the worker through the warehouse to pick each line of the order in the most efficient way possible. It can also enforce FIFO by directing the worker to pick the oldest stock that is on hand. Other warehouses may need to use zone picking, batch picking, order consolidation, or various combinations of all of these options. The right Warehouse Management System is critical if you are going to employ any of these more advanced picking strategies since there is so much to track and so many opportunities for errors to occur.

The nature of warehouse operations is that they need to change over time. Investing in a WMS will result in substantial benefits as you optimize your current processes and take advantage of all that the software can bring to bear. The challenge is to make sure that the software can grow with you as your needs change.