Warehouse Management Systems – from some vendors at least – were a little late to move to the Cloud. Softeon has been doing Cloud WMS deployments for many years, but has really seen adoption take off in the past two year. 

This is due to the major advantages from Cloud deployments in such areas as time and cost of the implementations and ease of system management post-go live, requiring little internal IT resources.

After a significant number of Cloud WMS deployments, Softeon has gained insights that are potentially of interest to prospective WMS adopters, which we’ll summarize in this broadcast.

Most WMS systems in the past did not concern themselves with utilization of materials handling equipment.

The result: big peaks and valleys in volume, resulting in lots of wait time and reducing total system throughput.

WES was developed to address that challenge, using algorithms to level-load cartons on to the equipment, and using techniques such as waveless order picking to meet that goal.

That capability can deliver real value and either increase throughput from an existing system, or reduce the size, floor space and cost of new equipment being planned.

But there has been little focus on WES for manual or only modestly automated facilities. Softeon is working to change that.

https://vurbl.com/station/4Hg29rMKQY0/

Why are put walls becoming so popular?

Order picking efficiencies are gained through use of batch picking, where picks are grouped so that all items needed for orders to be processed in a given wall module or modules are picked in one stop in the picking area. This is generally much more efficient than discrete order picking

An introduction to the increasingly popular use of Put Walls for order fulfillment.

Before the virus pandemic, labor challenges in distribution centers were almost at crisis levels.

The reality is there are many tools available to take on the DC labor challenge, whether your issue is labor costs, labor availability, DC throughput or like many all three.

In our previous episode, we discussed Distributed Order Management or DOM software solutions. In great summary, traditional order management systems are order processing oriented, while DOM is more focused on order fulfillment.

A DOM system serves as a powerful hub that enables omnichannel commerce; integrates the extended supply chain; optimizes inbound and outbound order routing; provides real-time network inventory visibility, allocation, and management; automates complex channel and customer requirements; and maximizes profitability while meeting customer service commitments.

What is zoning? In general, it involves grouping some set of individual storage locations of all types into defined zones that can be used by the WMS to improve operational effectiveness and precision. A WMS should have the ability to define any number of zones and create the logic for how the putaway logic is executed in preferred zone sequence.

Task interleaving is more talked about than executed, but in the right circumstances it can bring strong productivity gains. With the rise of autonomous mobile robots, or AMRs, a new type of interleaving has emerged.

Discrete engineered standards are great for those companies that want to use them, but a more statistical approach can often deliver most of the value - at far lower costs.