Warehouse Storage and Picking System The evolution of warehouse management systems () is very similar to that of many other softWarehouse Storage and Picking Systemware solutions. Initially a system to control movement and storage of materials within a warehouse, the role of is expanding to including light manufacturing, transportation management, order management, and complete accounting systems. To use the grandfather of operations-related software, , as a comparison, material requirements planning () started as a system for planning raw material requirements in a manufacturing environment. Soon evolved into manufacturing resource planning (II), which took the basic system and added scheduling and capacity planning logic. Eventually II evolved into enterprise resource planning (ERP), incorporating all the II functionality with full financials and customer and vendor management functionality. Now, whether eWarehouse Storage and Picking Systemvolving into a warehouse-focused ERP system is a good thing or not is up to debate. What is clear is that the expansion of the overlap in functionalivary significantly from one software vendor to another, however the basic logic will use a combination of item, location, quantity, unit of measure, and order information to determine where to stock, where to pick, and in what sequence to perform these operations. At a bare minimum, a should:Do You Really Need ?Not every warehouse needs a . Certainly any warehouse could benefit from some of the functionality but is the benefit great enough to justify the initial and ongoing costs associated with ? Warehouse Management Systems are big, complex, data intensive, applWarehouse Storage and Picking Systemications. They tend to require a lot of initial setup, a lot of system resources to run, and a lot of ongoing data management to continue to run. That’s right, you need to “manage” your warehouse “management” system. Often times, large operations will end up creating a new IS department with the sole responsibility of managing the . The Claims: The Reality: The implementation of a along with automated data collectiWarehouse Storage and Picking Systemon will likely give you increases in accuracy, reduction in labor costs (provided the labor required to maintain the system is less than the labWarehouse Storage and Picking Systemor saved on the warehouse floor), and a greater ability to service the customer by reducing cycle times. Expectations of inventory reduction and increased storage capacity are less likely. While increased accuracy and efficiencies in the receiving process may reduce the level of required, the impact of this reduction will likely be negligible in comparison to overall inventory levels.The predominant factors that control inventory levels are, lead times, and demand variability. It is unlikelyWarehouse Storage and Picking System that a will have a significant impact on any of these factors. And while a certainly provides the tools for more organized storage which may result in increased storage capacity, this improvement will be relative to just how sloppy your pre- processes were.Beyond labor efficiencies, the determining factors in deciding to implement a tend to be more often associated Warehouse Storage and Picking Systemwith the need to do something to service your customers that your current system does not support (or does not support well) such as first-in-first-out, cross-docking, automated pick replenishment, wave picking, lot tracking, yard managemeaches, cases, pallets, etc) as well as information such as whether it can be mixed with other items in a location, whether it is rackable, max stack height, max quantity per location, Warehouse Storage and Picking System hazard classifications, finished goods or raw material, fast versus slow mover, etc. Although some operations will need to set up each item this way, most operations will benefit by creating groups of similar products. For example, if you are a distributor of music CDs you would create groups for single CDs, and double CDs, maintaining the detailed dimension and weight information at tach the group code to each item. You would lik
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