Warehouse management systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Warehouse management systems - Essay ExampleThe modern storage warehouse can ill-afford to ignore this important resource.The primeval focus of SCM is to get the refine part to the right place at the right time. WMS facilitates this process by dramatically increasing the accuracy of inventory management, control, and distribution. For example, when move are received at a warehouse facility, a good WMS can check the bill of lading against the items actually received, and any discrepancies can be noted through the audit trail thereby allowing management to track items that have been lost in transit (Gladston 40). It goes without saying that it is impossible to ship the right part from the warehouse facility if the item never actually made it to the warehouse. When the system generates an audit trail document, facility employees can quickly and easily detect the problem and resolve it. Thus, system accuracy is greatly enhanced through WMS. If, as in the case study, a facility that is holding more than 85,000 business line keeping units can obtain 99.9% accuracy, the impact of such a system is significant.Another reason why WMS is critical to operations is its ability to allocate memory board locations of parts and supplies at bottom the facility itself. Businesses that move a high volume of parts through their proviso chain must focus on up the efficiency of warehouse management (especially space) to avoid the logistical difficulties that would be present in a poorly-designed facility (Cortada 292). In the case of Toyota, the ability to allocate warehouse space according to the parts size and frequency of demand was a major contributor to the systems success. For a company like Wal-Mart, which uses centralized distribution centers to serve its umpteen outlets, a WMS that streamlined facility space allocations by creating inventory zones would create a scale of add chain efficiency that could save the company millions of dollars a year. In the same way t hat it is impossible to move the right part from the warehouse if it hasnt arrived, it is equally difficult to do so if management knows that it has the part in the warehouse but isnt sure where it is. The organization of storage and product flow throughout a warehouse facility is so important that if a WMS did wholly that, it would be worth the investment. The advantages of a WMS, however, go beyond the ability to track and store inventory. As the systems become more sophisticated, they are able to increase supply chain efficiency in many other ways.As noted in the case study on Toyota, the WMS not only tracks position within the system, but also produces a tag label giving part details and locations. A dealer direct order capability, when combined with overall supply chain efficiency, leverages warehouse management to a much higher level. As one author notes, WMS functionality will continue to broaden... with an increasing focus on ever-changing optimization to a dismantle that will enable the system to ship product without ever actually receiving it (Hoctor and Thierauf 238). The ability to optimize a companys operations to the point that supply-chain subsystems are integrated across the entire platform is what makes a good WMS more than just a