E-commerce
is no longer considered a fad, and the online race for capturing the biggest
share of the customer’s wallet has left many a traditional retailer trailing
behind.
What’s left them behind is not the technology that makes online shopping
possible, but the offline movement of ordered goods that are still largely
managed by processes that were put in place when physical stores were the only
option available to customers.
It is during this offline chain of events that buyers can either be impressed
into becoming loyal customers, or put off to such an extent that they lose all
faith in a supplier.
So much effort can be spent on developing a slick online shop that makes
browsing virtual products easy on a device that fits comfortably in the palm of
our hand, that it’s easy to forget that the promises made on the online
platform need to be kept by those working offline with physical products stored
in and distributed from huge warehouses.
Irrespective of how advanced the ordering technology used by customers is, a
warehouse still runs on basic principles of receiving, sorting, and storing
goods until it is time to pick a certain amount of goods from a shelf, pack it
as per the customers’ order, and direct it to the correct delivery vehicle.
To keep up with the orders flowing in from multiple platforms that are never
closed for business, warehouses need some form of system driving it. The
technology can be as complex as an entire warehouse run entirely by automated
machines, or as simple as a system telling the people in the warehouse where
items must be stored.
Many of these systems are however still paper based, which is not reflective of
the advances made in technologies allowing customers to easily place orders.
The main reason that many warehouses keep their operations paper based is to
avoid the problems that have been reported with implementing a Warehouse
Management System (WMS). The biggest challenge to implementing any warehouse
management systems is the realtime nature of a warehouse; if a system isn’t
running properly, it has a realtime, real life impact. If the system can’t tell
where the goods need to move, everything is standing still.
We have seen WMS implementations so disconnected from the way the business is
actually operated, that staff members refuse to use the system and revert back
to their paper based ways of getting things done. This is not only a
significant waste of a significant investment by the company, but does nothing
to decrease the risk or increase the competitiveness that the WMS
implementation was intended to address.
To avoid this type of disconnect, a few fundamentals should be considered
before making a decision on which type of WMS would be most suitable to deliver
on the promises made by a supplier.
Understand more than
just your area of responsibility
Warehousing is part of a larger chain of events, and the more you understand
the larger supply chain, the better recommendations you can make to others on
how the whole chain can work together to meet changing customer demands.
Understand the
difference between exciting features and real business purpose
It’s very easy to get sidetracked by a large list of features once you start
investigating WMS, but be warned. A WMS should be built around processes that
already work optimally. Processes should not be changed or created just to
accommodate a system feature that is often not as robust as marketing material
may make it seem.
The decision on a WMS should be made based on an understanding of the business
purpose; the true value the business wants to deliver to its customers.
Understand that it’s
about slow and steady, not rushed and ready
The realtime nature of warehouse operations demand that a new WMS disrupts
normal business as little as possible. This is only possible if all
stakeholders in the WMS project team understands that rushing the initial
planning process, and skimping on dry-run tests, almost always guarantees a
problematic or even catastrophic implementation.
Make sure time and budget is made available for running tests throughout the
project based on one version of the truth which is established and maintained
on a live, cloud-based, collaborative, platform. Testing at the end of a WMS
implementation project based on static documents that were created at the
beginning of a project causes problems based on a disconnect between the
greater business processes, what the business is doing, and what the system is
supposed to do.
Contributed
by: Hein
Pretorius, founder and CEO of Onpro Consulting
