Warehousing, IV

Technologies

Topics Covered
1. WMS 2. Work Profiling 3. Near future technologies

Outline
1. WMS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Definition Evolution Components Implementation success Change management

Outline
2. Work profiling
1. Data Warehousing 2. Useful information 3. Data mining

Outline
3. Near future technologies
1. AIDC

WMS

WMS Definition
A Warehouse Management System (WMS) is a complex software package that helps manage inventory, storage locations, and the workforce, to ensure that customer orders are picked quickly, packed, and shipped.

WMS Definition
A typical WMS knows about every item in the warehouse, its physical dimensions, how it is packed by the vendor, all the storage locations in the warehouse, and their addresses and physical dimensions. With this knowledge, the WMS orchestrates the flow of people, machines, and product.

WMS Definition
Before WMS: catalogue orders are shipped in 68 weeks After WMS: catalogue orders are shipped today

WMS Definition
What is it?
Locations

DB

SKU DB

operations
Inventory

DB

WMS Evolution
Optimization Receiving and shipping Stock Location Advanced WH operations Integration with other software

WMS Evolution
Optimization Receiving and shipping Stock Location Advanced WH operations Integration with other software

record receipt of inventory into the warehouse and to register its shipment out

WMS Evolution
Optimization Receiving and shipping Stock Location Advanced WH operations Integration with other software

The ability to locate any item in the warehouse or find a location for it (put-away and picking)

WMS Evolution
Optimization Receiving and shipping Stock Location Advanced WH operations Integration with other software

-Zone picking, wave picking etc. -Value adding operations: cross docking, kitting, consolidation

WMS Evolution
Optimization Receiving and shipping Stock Location Advanced WH operations Integration with other software

-Best sequencing, batching orders, slotting etc.

WMS Evolution
Optimization Receiving and shipping Stock Location Advanced WH operations Integration with other software

Integration with: ERP, CRM, TMS, LMS

WMS Implementation Success

Why it might fail? Garbage in, garbage out Automation of poor processes Customization of software No upper management support

WMS Implementation Success

1. Top management to know its strategy 2. Selecting a software capable of achieving this strategy 3. The firm to think processes 4. Understand your processes, and redesign it if needed 5. Be prepared for employees resistance 6.

WMS Implementation Success

Two factors: 1. Process thinking 2. Meeting strategic goals

WMS Implementation Success

An enterprise is a system of integrated processes People are the drivers and owners of the processes Once processes are understood and simplified, the proposed WMS software can be evaluated

Work Profiling

Work Profiling

Data Warehousing and Mining

Data Mining for knowledge management
DB DB
Reports and Analysis

Warehouse

DB

Work Profiling Data Warehousing and Mining

Lost in the warehouse! Need to make better decisions Profile the data

Work Profiling Data Warehousing and Mining

Data sources:
SKU data Orders Warehouse information

Work Profiling Data Warehousing and Mining

Thousands, even millions, of SKUs Thousands, even millions, of orders Tens, even hundreds, of picking lines/order Thousands of locations

Work Profiling Useful Information

Pareto: 80-20 rules again

Work Profiling Useful Information

Who are the major customers? What they order? Any cross products? How the average number of SKUs change with time? What are the fast movers? What is the average number of order/day, pickline/order, piece/pick-line? Number of workers/day? What is the number of received trucks/day? Any seasonality?

Work Profiling Useful Information

Are the previous questions important and how will you use it?

Work Profiling Data Mining

Main processes:
Clustering: is the method by which like records are grouped together. Usually this is done to give the end user Any use in warehousing? a high level view of what is going on in the database. Clustering is sometimes used to mean segmentation - which most marketing people will tell you is useful for coming up with a birds eye view of the business.

Work Profiling Data Mining

Main processes:
Association Discovering regularities between observations. Used for market basket analysis: Any use in warehousing? Onion + Potato burger