Manage My Warehouse

How do I manage my warehouse? If your business includes a stockroom or warehouse, at some point in the company's growth it makes sense to look at implementing a barcode Warehouse Management System. Manually  recording stock receipts, item quantities by location and item picks for order processing becomes tedious as volume grows. The inaccuracies of manual data recording and data entry are magnified as the number of transactions grows. Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) offers "directed" worker movements to control the movement and storage of warehouse items.

There are a host of reasons to consider an investment in a barcode Warehouse Management System, besides those related to increased data accuracy. These reasons often include:

• Reducing the cost of labor associated with managing the warehouse
• Increasing inventory count accuracy for accounting
• Facilitating automatic reordering and reducing "safety stocks"
• Increasing the ability to provide customer service in areas such as FIFO, lot tracking, and pick replenishment

While an effectively implemented and managed barcode Warehouse Management System can improve the efficiency of your warehouse operations, be aware that system implementations can be lengthy and complicated. Provision must be made for the increased IT department support requirements that a WMS system will entail in the areas of network expansion, database maintenance and the service / maintenance of  data collection equipment. It is essential that the projected labor savings of the barcode Warehouse Management System will offset these increased IT costs. As a general statement, you should expect a return on investment (ROI) of 18-36 months from the time you go "live" with the system. Ask for ROI calculations from the various software suppliers you're considering, and consider making the ROI payback as part of the purchasing contract.

Economics aside, managing the flow of products and materials in and out of a warehouse environment is critical to the efficient operation of the enterprise. Although the software and hardware systems that manage this function can be specific to the warehouse itself, f, most today's warehouse management systems must pulp data from and push data to other systems. Specifically, WMS (warehouse management systems) interact with systems that control the business's accounting functions.

To understand how Warehouse Management Systems relate to ERP and other enterprise systems, go to the "WMS vs ERP " page.