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Incorporating Lean Concepts in WMS Process Design

The handling units of measure and the velocity in which inventory flows through a facility can be difficult to understand.
Knowing the impact of this can help your company avoid common pitfalls when attempting to optimize current processes
and design more efficient processes in the distribution center.

Whatever the goals are for implementing a Warehouse

Management System (WMS), many companies and
integrators may not realize the importance of including
Lean Material Flow Principles as part of their WMS
implementations. Companies implement a WMS with a
variety of goals in mind. These can include replacing a legacy
or proprietary WMS, improving inbound and outbound cycle
times, increasing throughput, allowing for real-time data and
visibility, increasing productivity to achieve ROI results and/or
a combination of these goals or others.

is running today is an idea that assumes that the current

facility layout is optimal, SKU levels will remain stagnant and
both your inbound and outbound order profiles arent going
to change over the next several years. This also assumes that
the current slotting in your facility is optimal and the number
of times you replenish forward pick locations is optimal.

Dont Optimize a Bad Process

1. What is the five-year forecasted growth for the SKUs,

velocity and cube in the current warehouse?

Everybody has heard the phrase, Dont optimize a

bad process. This could never be truer than in a WMS
implementation. Implementing a WMS system is a substantial
financial investment in search of quality results. Time and time
again, companies remain inflexible in regards to reviewing
storage media, warehouse layout, process time studies and
even moving product to ensure proper zoning of product
with their WMS.
The design phase of a WMS implementation should be
based on a future vision of the optimal processes for your
distribution center rather than the current process flows. The
idea of configuring your WMS around the way your operation

Optimizing Processes
When thinking of optimizing future processes with a WMS,
these are five commonly overlooked areas:

2. Is the warehouse slotted properly? Is the product located

in the correct location based on order profiles, and do
the forward pick locations have the proper capacity to
accommodate an optimal days on hand quantity?
3. Is there a clear understanding of order profiles both
inbound and outbound?
4. Do I have the optimal Material Handling Equipment?
5. Can relocating product in the facility improve a
process with the implementation of a WMS?

v i e w p o i n t
Incorporating Lean Concepts in WMS Process Design
The truth is, if you dont know the answers to
some or all of these questions before your WMS
design sessions begin, youre leaving savings on
the table.

Understanding the Current Baseline

It is important to understand where you are
today so that you can strategically plan for your
WMS future process. Gathering important large
sets of data items, such as outbound orders,
inbound orders, inventory snapshots, locations
and the item master data, is useful to understand
the correct baseline. The analysis of this data
produces several, often eye-opening, results for
our customers. These results typically include:
Outbound orders summarized by channel
(e-Com, Phone, etc.)

Below is a picking process flow example

broken down by the percentage of time a
picker spends performing a task. In this specific
warehouse, the picker spends 52 percent of his
time picking, 33 percent of his time traveling,
and 12 percent of his time tearing off carton
tops. This is sample data from an each pick
environment with several hundred users. A drop
of a percentage point in any of these areas will
mean thousands of dollars of savings per year.

Picking (PROCESSING)
0%
33%

1%

1%
12%

52%

1%

Pick
Travel
Carton
Unavoidable Delay
Assignment
Avoidable Delay
Damages/trash/
short/break down box

Delivery points by three-digit zip code

Grouping of SKUs together by velocity by unit
of measure
Average units per line
Order affinity for SKUs
Ideal size of active/pick locations
Determination of whether a fixed or dynamic
pick location is the best solution or a
combination of the two
Additionally, it is important to document current
processes in detail and provide a time study for
each activity. Until it is known where employees
spend their time through observations and time
studies, it is difficult to hone in on the pieces of
that process, that if reduced, could make the
overall process more efficient.

This particular customer picked off of paper

and required the worker to remove box tops at
the each pick face if the carton wasnt already
open. If the company moved the removal of the
box tops to the replenishment activity, it would
see increased overall savings in picking.
Another procedural improvement that would
result in significant savings is to direct the
user on the proper travel path. There are
lean components that can contribute to
reducing the percentage of travel the picker is
performing. These components include slotting
optimization results from the material flow
data study. Additionally, setting up the proper
pick sequence in the WMS can assist in
reducing travel.

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Implement a WMS Along with

Lean Concepts
The picking example in the previous section
is a simple example of why a WMS wont
completely optimize your warehouse
operations. In that instance, a WMS will take the
paper out of a pickers hands, direct the user to
the next location, and require the user to scan
the location and/or item being picked. This
alone will drive a certain amount of savings.
However, the WMS wont be able to recognize
that the removal of the box tops should be
a replenishment activity instead of a picking
activity. Additionally, the WMS wont slot the
warehouse properly without some initial SKU
and order analysis to slot SKUs and create an
optimal pick path.

Summary
A WMS provides a systemic set of instructions to
the user which alone will drive a certain amount
of efficiency and tracking. However, without
a proper slotting and procedural analysis, the
WMS that you thought would optimize your
entire warehouse can turn into a very expensive
data collection tool. In order to not leave money
on the table during your WMS implementation,
perform a detailed slotting analysis and
operational analysis before the WMS functional
design sessions. These lean concepts will
significantly increase your ROI when investing
in a WMS.