WMS Pioneers

In this episode, Softeon CEO Jim Hoefflin and CTO Mark Fralick discuss their decision to join Softeon, the customer-focused culture they're building, and valuable advice for aspiring supply chain professionals on becoming indispensable in their organizations.

Mark has a sneezing spell, while the Pioneers dive into the rise of third-party logistics (3PL), the intricacies of multi-tenant systems, and how Softeon empowers 3PLs to enhance both speed and flexibility.

In this episode, the Pioneers discuss the secrets to a successful WMS implementation, how to avoid death by a thousand keystrokes, and share battle scars from challenging go-lives.

Softeon CTO Mark Fralick loves coffee. And efficient, integrated, and harmonious warehouses! Mark joins Softeon CEO Jim Hoefflin in the second episode of the WMS Pioneers limited podcast series. The two friends describe the evolution of warehouse technology, where the industry stands today, and provide tips for leaders to navigate the sometimes-daunting landscape.

Lookout for new episodes every month. Watch them all at https://www.softeon.com/wms-pioneers.

“Brothers from different mothers” as they describe it, Softeon CEO Jim Hoefflin and CTO Mark Fralick have worked together over the last 35 years. The duo, known at Softeon as “WMS Pioneers” developed one of the first Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) in 1993 after realizing there was a market shaping.

Lookout for new episodes every month. Watch them all at https://www.softeon.com/wms-pioneers.

Getting WMS team members on the same page in terms of terminology is a key part of a successful Warehouse Management System project. The WMS Glossary of Terms can help, defining more than 90 terms and acronyms, as an on-line resource or downloadable pdf. Great handout for term members at start of a project. 

Less well-known than the WMS Magic Quadrant, the Gartner Critical Capabilities report ranks WMS vendors purely on functionality across nine attributes, weighted by different levels of warehouse complexity. It is an important companion piece to the MQ to understand the WMS market, as we explain in this podcast.

In the second of our two podcasts featuring highlights of Mark Fralick’s interview with Bob Trebilcock of Modern Materials Handling magazine, Fralick suggests a new way to think about how Warehouse Execution Systems might orchestrate order fulfillment to balance work across the distribution center.

Highlights from a recent Modern Materials Handling magazine podcast featuring editor Bob Trebilcock and Mark Fralick, Chief Technology Officer at Softeon. “Interfacing is easy. Integration is hard,” when it comes to warehouse automation, Fralick says. Trebilcock wants to know why.

We conclude our look at this important but little understood type of supply chain software.