How to upgrade your warehouse management system using real-time and wireless
Are you looking at upgrading your warehouse management system (WMS)? Do you know other supply chains in need of updating their WMS?
If you have an outdated, manual warehouse inventory system, it can PAINFUL. Not just for the warehouse, but for everyone in the supply chain.
When it comes to Canadian warehouses, many are still on manual warehouse management programs.
Making for long and uninspiring days at the office.
According to Roger Rountree, VP Marketing and Business Development, Cadre Technologies, some of the pain points he hears include:
Lost inventory
Slow and tedios picking, especially with missing items
Many erros
Late shipments
Expensive charge backs for all of the above
These problems occur in small and large organizations.
This article will provide some simple tips to help you improve warehouse operations and efficiency:
Warehouse inefficiencies: Hard to find data
Warehouse-management-system-computer.jpgThe root of inefficient warehouses is usually data.
Planning work, such as picking, is primarily a manual process. Managers sort pick tickets to meet immediate priorities and hand them to pickers.
Finding the right data is tough when going through spreadsheets and paper pick tickets.
Finding data is only half the battle.
Recording information back into an ERP, Excel or an order management system is equally tedious.
It consumes many unnecessary employee hours.
Once picking is complete and shipments are out the door, information must be manually entered back into the system.
This is required for various downstream reporting and billing.
As you can see, there’s significant potential for errors with manual data entry. Most warehouse operators have war stories just on manual data entry.
Solution: real-time operations and data
Warehouse-management-system-computer-operator.jpg
Getting out of the spreadsheet, paper and manual data entry is not impossible.
It requires commitment, an investment in time, money and acceptance of change.
According to Rountree, “today’s modern warehouse management systems put data (orders, inventory information, SKU information, etc.) into a database that is available to execute operations such as:
receiving
location management
picking
packing
shipping
Data is accessed through a server array via wireless mobile computers equipped with bar-code scanners.
These devices electronically direct the tasks for warehouse workers.
“The systems, via RF scanners, both receive instructions and send data to the host system (database) as work is completed,” Rountree explains. “Everything is recorded in real-time….who did what, where and when. The database is a complete audit trail of what happened.”
Warehouse-management-system-computer-operations-worker.jpg
It’s also a record of where everything is located in the warehouse, even multiple warehouses.
This becomes a perpetual inventory tracking system that directs workers where to pick, put-away or replenish inventory.
You can still print out spreadsheets
“With a rich source of operational data, if you want to see it in a spreadsheet and print it on paper…no problem,” Rountree says.
Data is for analysis in many flexible reports and queries.
It’s even available online, without the paper…. but sometimes, it’s nice to still have the option of paper.
What's next?
Successfully filling multiple orders means getting organized to efficiently pick, pack and ship.
There’s no question working in real-time and wireless is the way to go.
The challenge will be committing to a budget to invest in the technology at the front end with long term pay off.
Are you working wirelessly in real-time? Do you know other companies who are? Share your thoughts.