Warehouse Management System FAQs

Inbound Logistics

• Yard management and appointment scheduling
• Receiving
• Reverse logistics
• Cross docking

Inventory Management and Control

• Putaway
• Full stock take
• Cycle counting
• Lot and serial tracking

Outbound Order Processing

• Wave planning
• Picking
• Outbound quality audits

Shipping and Loading

• Load building and loading
• Rating and routing
• Shipping documentation

Yard management and appointment scheduling

Inbound planning is where warehouse success begins. Yard management is the practice of managing the vehicles and/ or trailers as they arrive at your facility and then directing them to either a yard location or appropriate dock door. This function works best when coupled with appointment scheduling as your facility has finite capacity and planning the arrival of deliveries against that capacity ensures that the workload is smoothed throughout the day.

Receiving

Receiving is pivotal to the success of your warehouse and, ultimately, your business. Whether you are receiving against Advanced Shipping Notices (ASNs), PO’s or blind and whether your inventory is labelled, pre-allocated or arrives unplanned, mistakes and errors during the receiving process negatively affect every downstream process that follows in your warehouse.  So the importance of ensuring your WMS helps to drive an effective receiving process is critical.

Reverse Logistics

Returns or reverse logistics is a fact of life and with the continued rise of Omni Channel fulfilment is  only growing as many retail and wholesale companies are dealing directly with their end customers. Reverse logistics is often a science unto itself and requires careful thought and upstream planning, this coupled with streamlined warehouse processing that typically includes effective inventory disposition assignment, touch screen processing, re-labelling and allocation is where an effective WMS will assist

Cross Docking

There are many forms of cross docking including flow through, merge in transit, ship to mark for, pure cross dock, these can then be coupled with multiple warehouse processes such as put to store, opportunistic substitution and allocation. The important thing to consider with cross docking is that the main aim is to ship out the inventory you receive without having to make any changes to how it was received and this is where your WMS should seamlessly match the inventory received to the open orders to facilitate this.

Putaway

An effective putaway process assists in speeding up your order fulfillment time as most ERP systems wont let you sell inventory that you don’t physically and systematically have - which is why your dock to stock metric is one of your most critical.Your WMS helps to optimise your putaway strategy, allowing you to improve warehouse capacity, inventory availability, as well as reducing excess travel, preventing damage to inventory and reducing congestion in aisles.

Full Stock Take

Most warehouses will require a full stock take at least twice a year - sometimes more if your auditors require it. As a full stock take typically requires that you stop operations whilst the physical count is being performed, it’s essential that your WMS helps you accurately plan, coordinate and execute this process so you can back to the business of fulfilling orders ASAP.

Cycle Counting

Cycle Counting is typically broken into two components:

1 - Planned Counts - This is where your inventory team counts X number of items and/ or locations on a regular basis based on criteria such as item velocity, item value, days since last counted, etc

2 - Exception Counts - As the name suggests these counts are typically executed when an exception such as a short pick or alternate location selection occur, but they can also be proactive by asking pickers to confirm that locations are actually empty once they have picked the last item in the location

Most warehouses have a combination of full stock takes and cycle counts in place, but the most mature use cycle counts only as they have proven that their inventory accuracy is sufficient to warrant the trust and flexibility to do so

Lot and Serial Tracking

If you are a company that operates in the pharmaceutical or food distribution sectors you’ll be all too familiar with the need for tracking lot, batch and expiry dates. These are specifically important when ensuring you are supplying the freshest inventory, and when there is a product recall, as you will need to know exactly what lot, batch and expiry of the recalled item you have shipped to each and every customer.

High Tech Electronic companies also need to track serial numbers for warranty purposes. There are often manufacturer rebates for specific items and the only way to claim these is by ensuring you provide information on which serial number was sold to which customer. In addition, when an item is returned, it’s critical to match the serial number sold to the customer with the one returned.

Wave Planning

 The wave is one of most important functions of a WMS as it performs the following core functions:

• Selects the appropriate customer orders
• Allocates inventory
• Creates replenishments where necessary
• Creates, sequences and organises picking tasks
• Prints any required labels
• Releases work to the warehouse to be fulfilled
  
  

Picking

Picking involves selecting the appropriate items that match your customer order requirements, as it is one of the most important functions in a warehouse it needs to planned, organised and executed effectively and this is where your WMS should come into its own.

There are many types of order picking including:

• Discrete Order Picking - Picking one order at a time
• Batch Picking - Pulling down a large amount of a single item that has been ordered by many customers and then sorting that item to satisfy the orders
• Cart Picking - Picking and packing several customer orders into the final shipping containers via a picking cart or trolley
• RF Picking  - Radio Frequency devices are the most commonly used to present tasks to pickers
• Voice Picking - Pickers are presented with picking tasks via a headset and speech instructions and then fedback to the WMS via a headset
• Tote Picking - typically used in omnichannel operations where multiple customer orders are picked into a single tote and then sorted at a put-wall
• Full Pallet Picking - Involves selecting a full pallet, typically from reserve racking to satisfy an line
• Pick and Pass - this involves multiple pickers selecting items for an order and passing the container between the various zones from which the items need to be selected.
• Put to Store - this is typically used in a retail distribution environment and involves “putting” the contents of an item’s carton or pallet to individual store locations
• Materials Handling Equipment (MHE) Assisted Picking - in high volume, high labour cost distribution centers, picking is either performed or aided by using material handling equipment such a put to light, automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS), goods to man and various other forms
  
  

Outbound Quality audit

Auditing or checking your orders prior to despatching them to customers is typically driven by a number of factors including:

• Order Picking Accuracy Metric - the more errors, the more you should audit
• Specific Item Requirements - these can include high value, highly desirable, value added services,
• Customer Requirements - these can include priority customers, customers who raise the most delivery complaints and returns
• Staff Monitoring - additional checks for pickers who have low accuracy metrics
• Security Requirements - if you believe there is theft then you should be auditing specific items and staff that are under suspicion
• Random Audits - it is good practice to perform X of Y checks to ensure that your teams are aware that the picking work will be checked  

Load Building and Loading

The process of building a load can either be performed in the wave, via integration to a Transport Management System (TMS) or after orders are picked. Your WMS should enable the flexibility to perform any combination of these processes.

Loading is the process of the WMS systematically directing the shipping teams as to which orders to load onto which vehicles, at which dock doors at the appropriate time to meet the despatch cut off time.

Rating and Routing

The process of rating and routing can either be performed in the wave, via a third party carrier system or after orders are picked. The aim of rating and routing is to systematically select the most appropriate carrier to transport your customer orders based on the price and service level requirement of the customer.

Shipping Documentation

Prior to dispatch, your customer orders and delivery partners will typically require supporting documentation, whether this be electronically verified or printed at the time of despatch. The typical core documents include:

• Carrier Compliant Shipping Labels - these are typically placed on each “container” shipped so as to allow the carrier to scan and verify throughout the shipping process
• Manifest - this typically lists the entire contents of a shipment or load and can often be referred to as a ‘bill of lading’ depending on the purpose and destination of the cargo
• Invoice - typically an invoice is generated from the ERP and electronically sent to customers once the contents of an order has been fully loaded and no further changes need to be made
• ASN - the Advance Shipping Notice is sent to the receiving party so that they can plan in advance based on the contents of the shipment that is in transit

Your WMS should be able to generate or trigger the creation of these documents in a flexible and tailored manner that meets your requirements.

Discover how Supply Chain Junction helped Tarsus Distribution improve their warehouse operations by using the above functionality contained within the Manhattan WMS, as well as implementing new processes and systems. Tarsus increased their warehouse efficiency, customer service and subsequently their business success by 60%!