Professional warehouse management and managing the work of the team responsible for its proper functioning is one of the most difficult tasks facing logistics specialists. How to avoid mistakes in a logistics company? How to improve processes in the warehouse? How to improve the flow of information and documents in the logistics center?
These questions are asked by every person who is responsible for managing the work of a warehouse or logistics center. Fortunately, modern technologies also help employees of the logistics industry. Thanks to WMS class systems, improving warehouse operation is simpler than ever before, and eliminating errors and mistakes as well as reducing the costs of this area of activity is the most real.
WMS is an abbreviation for Warehouse Management System. As the name suggests, WMS is a class of information systems for comprehensive warehouse work management. Systems of this type allow real-time management of physical and administrative flow of goods from the moment they are accepted into the warehouse until they are released. This type of software is perfect for any type of business.
Regardless of whether we work in the warehouse of finished products, raw materials or look after the distribution center. WMS system implemented in our company is always programmed in such a way as to focus on the needs of users. So how can the implementation of the WMS system help employees of each warehouse?
What functions do WMS systems have?
The basic function of any WMS system is fast and (most importantly) faultless location of goods in the warehouse and control of the course of trade in these goods. A good Warehouse Management System is programmed to provide information on even the smallest batch of goods that we store immediately and without any mistakes.
Regardless of whether we want to check where the giant container is located or a small, but priority parcel, passing through the distribution center. A professional WMS system that allows you to create very advanced labels will always help in their location. This label is used to mark goods units when they are accepted into the warehouse. The label is a peculiar identifier that allows you to locate goods regardless of whether they are all the time in one warehouse or is transferred between warehouses that, working together, exchange information as part of the system.
Since thanks to the work with the Warehouse Management System we are able to freely locate goods, our work related to inventory and all types of inventory becomes easier than ever.
Modern WMS enable very efficient quantity and assortment control of the stored goods.
They allow for efficient and free monitoring of the compliance of goods with previous orders. This function is particularly important in the work of logistics centers, where very dynamic movement of goods takes place. Batches, or even individual products, are sent on, often shortly after being accepted into the warehouse. Professional WMS systems allow you to get caught up in this tangle of orders and dependencies.
Modern warehouse management system allows planning of shipments of large batches and ongoing control of the amount of resources.
This allows you to properly plan the operation of the system for placing and receiving orders, to avoid costly downtime and unnecessary “freezing” of goods in the warehouse. As you can see, the implementation of WMS is not only an opportunity to improve the operation of the warehouse, but also to obtain further savings and optimize the costs of some processes.
Cooperation with other systems
An important element to pay attention to when choosing a WMS system is whether the program works with other software.
Most of the leading warehouse management systems (including WMS ibcsTiger) work efficiently with FK, ERP systems, and are also compatible with the GS1 system. Good WMS support so-called flat files, compound files, XML, WebService and others.
Which WMS system should you choose?
One of the best rated by users of WMS systems in Poland is ibcsTiger. Created by IBCS Poland, based on 20 years of company experience, the program allows not only to implement all the improvements that we described in this article, but also to many more improvements that employees of every logistics company will love.
ibcsTiger system allows you to reduce the time and costs of performing warehouse operations, reduce the number of mistakes, maximize the use of storage space, reduce inventory time or improve the system of employee control or training. However, this is only a fraction of the possibilities offered by a professional ibcsTiger system.