The distribution industry continues to experience immense changes. As a result, you need a warehouse management solution that offers dynamic functionalities to ensure efficiency and profitability in the long run.
In addition, customers have unique needs, demanding the integration of WMS features that can cater to this. Whether inspecting, packing, shipping, or assembling their orders, you need visibility for your organization while ensuring they get top-notch services.
So, how can you accomplish warehouse modernization? Here we highlight 6 WMS features from our ERP Playbook for the Modern Warehouse.
1. Robust Inventory Management System
Inventory management determines how well or poorly your warehouse management system will perform. Consequently, if you are looking forward to a successful WMS, you have to get a robust inventory management system.
This system will update information in real-time, enabling you to reflect these changes in the store. Wondering how you can realize real-time inventory processing? You can use consolidated hardware and software programs to integrate products.
With such inventory management, you will not offer products that are out of stock on your website. And while this may be the basic function of better inventory management, you can also enjoy other benefits.
For instance, identifying the location of items when you need them. As a result, your team will pick and pack them fast and easily, saving you time and making your company more efficient!
2. Seamless Integration of ERP
Can your warehouse management system integrate with enterprise resource planning? If no, you may be operating with inaccurate data and lack visibility when tracking data in your organization.
This can be detrimental to your business progress as it will interfere with proper decision-making and how you run your organization. Remember, one of the vital roles of ERP is to store information in one platform and synchronize it with that of other departments or entities.
So, when the WMS is not well integrated with ERP, your sales team will not be well-informed to update customers accordingly regarding their orders. To ensure your employees have updated information and other departments have better visibility of the supply chain, integrate the WMS with ERP solutions like Acumatica.
3. Mobile Deployment
In this tech-driven era, manual writing and inventory checking are inconvenient and ineffective. Moreover, with employees traveling overseas and having flexible person-hours, there is a need for devices that will offer them instant access to the warehouse anywhere at any time.
Thanks to the mobile deployment option, you can have a mobile-friendly feature for your warehouse management system to allow access with handheld gadgets. This will enable management professionals to view the purchase order, raw materials, and finished products lists. In addition, they will track the inventory in progress.
Does mobile deployment affect the ERP function?
Once you update data on the mobile-friendly and web-enabled WMS, it will be automatically refreshed in the ERP system. Consequently, all departments will have clarity and enjoy real-time consumption inventory. Needless to say, the concerned staff will have better visibility to take appropriate actions in the future.
The field workers are not left behind in this as they can perform numerous tasks with a web-enabled WMS. For instance, recording all transactions, generating reports, and managing daily tasks at their fingerprint.
4. Custom Branding
Warehouse modernization does not concern itself with the organization’s efficiency solely. Rather, it caters to the different needs of their clients to help them sustain or enhance their branding.
For instance, 3PL warehouses are normally the last to handle clients’ products before shipping. Consequently, they have a great responsibility associated with branding and should operate in a way that makes their customers feel the 3PL is part of their organization.
So, how can you accomplish this? By employing modern WMS solutions that will allow your staff to coordinate with the clients’ business operations. This will help them learn the customers’ expectations and requirements as they work with them.
In addition, these solutions should empower your workers to perform essential activities like adding logos to their customers’ WMS portals. Thus, increasing visibility and winning clients’ trust.
5. Paperless Inventory Transfer
The demands of warehouse management are too high to use traditional inventory management. Besides being cumbersome and wasteful, there is a high risk of losing information when you misplace the physical papers.
Going digital will eliminate, if not reduce, this risk and make the inventory transfer process more efficient. For example, if you have two warehouses located near each other, A and B, and Warehouse A requires the transfer of certain goods from Warehouse B, you can utilize the warehouse transfer option to do this.
All you need to do is mention the item code, bin code, batch number, on hand, and transfer quantity, then process it. This will take a few minutes, unlike when using physical papers.
Once the items are exchanged, you’ll get a message showing transfer details and the reference number.
Moreover, with a mobile-friendly and web-enabled app, you will have all details, saving you time and effort. You will also leverage an enhanced real-time goods tracking!
6. Resource Optimization
Knowing what inventory has been secured and its details like the dates and utilization is vital for visibility and effective business operation. You also need to track and account for the resources easily.
Otherwise, you may have to deal with low business productivity leading to human errors and delayed processes. But thanks to Acumatica, all tasks are completed on time by the right staff member.
It helps you enhance visibility and coordinates the different processes with the right persons. As a result, there is accuracy, eliminating human errors, which means no extra expenses for your organization!
Warehouse modernization makes processes much easier and efficient to give you complete visibility to your business. Consequently, with these six features, you get to enjoy automated processes that are accurate, saving you extra costs.
You also serve your clients better, winning their trust, which enhances your customer base. Eventually, your business gets to reap enormous benefits!
Learn More: Get the Modern Warehouse Playbook
By reading our Modern Warehouse playbook, you can take the mystery out of modernizing your warehouse and get a clear picture of which technology you will need along the way.
You will learn:- Which six feature categories you cannot afford to ignore.
- How seven emerging warehouse technologies impact your business.
- Where you really are in your warehouse modernization journey.
- Four critical steps to warehouse modernization success.
- The best way to execute your modern warehouse plan.
If you need a business management solution that can deliver for the unique challenges of the wholesale distribution industry, you need a partner with the experience and expertise to get you there. At Cloud 9 ERP Solutions, a Gold Certified Acumatica Partner, we have worked with companies like yours to configure and deliver Acumatica Cloud ERP, a product ready and able to handle your challenges. Watch our Acumatica Distribution demo to learn more.
Additional Resources
Laying the Groundwork: Three Steps to WMS Advancement
The Technologies Driving Warehouse Modernization
Top KPIs Every Distribution Company Should be Tracking
