How New Warehouse Management System Solutions are Increasing Profitability Across Organizations

What Are Warehouse Management Systems?

Royal 4 Systems has introduced WMS, which is a warehouse management system that assists and improves inventory accuracy, lowers inventory levels, improves order throughput, and reduces the overall response time of an order. With warehouses being a critical hub for many organizations, it is imperative that everything operates accordingly to plan down the supply chain. WMS allows companies and organizations to transform their warehouses allowing them to have a competitive advantage.

"Model your inventory and fully understand where it comes from, what attributes are critical, where your safety stock will come from, and what levels you must have to keep costs down. Don’t let yourself be surprised by stock outs. Think down the road so that you can be flexible and do better than your competitors." -Curt Sardeson

Embedded within the WISE WMS are 5 key tools that will increase overall efficiency and drive more profitability for warehouses; they are the following:[1]

1. Asset Management System- A tool called WISEam allows any organization to track the amount of capital invested in equipment and other assets. This is a tool that tracks and manages all assets of an organization and the configurations throughout the lifecycle. WISEam allows a larger picture and an accurate picture to view all assets at one time rather than monitoring them individually.
2. Voice Solutions- An incredible technology with voice picking that adapts to warehouses. It is a voice directed software that tells the worker exactly what item to pick. This tool will increase worker productivity, decrease mis-picks drastically, allow an organization to have real time visibility on inventory, and reduce new employee training since the voice pick literally tells you what to grab.
3. Mobile Solutions- This is a tool that uses existing Cell technology in warehouses that do not have the setup for the frequencies or need RF functions. This technology allows employees to navigate processes quickly regarding order entries, receiving, shipping, delivering, and signature capturing.
4. Warehouse Slotting- Slotting is the best form to find the ideal locations to improve the overall efficiency in the warehouse. According to Royal 4 Systems, “Slotting is the process of determining the best location in a warehouse to store faster moving items that are picked frequently by dedicating certain easily accessible locations that are closer to the Shipping/Packing areas. Slotting can be applied to dedicated pick locations (Pick-face) locations or generally to all locations. This tool will reduce the picking and travel time, reduce the number of replenishments, and reduce all the manual data entries.”[2]
5. Labor Management- Less management is needed with this tool due to the automatic collection and analysis of information on managers mobile WISE solutions. Since managers can see the big picture and don't have to be monitoring the floor, they now have time to focus on higher level initiatives.

The WMS system will drastically produce more earnings than other organizations who do not have smart systems in place. By having accurate inventory levels, higher inventory turnover, and higher order throughput they will be able to move more inventory overall resulting in higher efficiencies.

Robots and WSM Are Not the Future, They’re Here Now

Along with WSM systems, robots are also revolutionizing the warehouse industry. With the new technology becoming more relevant in this century, robots can run on complex algorithms that can be programmed for small and large warehouses. These robots could fulfill 10 pick stations or 250 stations without ever running into one another, increasing efficiency drastically. An amazing feature of these robots is that they can adjust and account for the speed of the pick worker meaning if someone is working fast, they will receive more pods than someone who is working at a slower pace. What’s unbelievable with this new technology is the worker just has to focus on the picking and packaging rather than having to leave his or her workstation, making an easier way to fulfill orders.

This new technology not only makes things more efficient, but it replaces the work that employees dislike doing as well as increasing efficiency drastically. With technology rapidly advancing, many companies are turning towards the WSM and robot technologies which in turn saves money and increases efficiency. This technology is allowing them to be more profitable in areas in which they previously struggled.

The future is here now. The WSM and robots are replacing our warehouse jobs. Even though people are losing jobs, these new technologies are allowing companies to operate at more efficient levels. Organizations implementing these tools will have lower costs, fewer mistakes (mis-picks), less people to manage, and machines that will for the most part, long laster than most employees.[3]

References:

[1] https://royal4.com/warehouse-management-system-solutions/

[2] https://royal4.com/warehouse-management-system-solutions/warehouse-slotting/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szU2-1infqc&t=12s

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