What is a WMS system?

In the logistics and trade industry, the abbreviation WMS is often found. This entry is dedicated to the issue - WMS system - what is it. The WMS (Warehouse Management System) is software that has become indispensable for many warehouse companies in recent years. WMS allows for better organization of warehouse work, increasing efficiency, improving the quality of services and freeing human resources from routine activities. The WMS system offers many benefits for companies, such as time savings, lower administrative costs, higher quality of service, better product availability and streamlined logistics processes.

They are available in the form of software or WMS services in the cloud. The WMS system can be used in various environments, from small online stores to large production plants. In this article, we will try to introduce you to what a WMS system is and what benefits it can bring to warehouse companies, we will take a closer look at WMS systems and consider how they can help companies achieve success.

WMS (Warehouse Management System) - is a warehouse software for managing warehouse documentation and the flow of goods in the warehouse. It allows for significant optimization, coordination and control of processes and operations taking place in the company. It is most often used in logistics companies, because it is there that we often deal with large-scale and smaller warehouses in which products and materials for various purposes are stored. Due to the profits, the popularity of such innovative solutions is increasing every year. The WMS system is dedicated to companies with any business profile, where there is a need for efficient service of warehouses of any type (from large-area warehouses and high storage to handheld warehouses and storage zones). The use of a modern system to support logistics and warehouse activities with the use of bar codes or RFID allows to increase the efficiency of the warehouse of materials and goods as well as products and finished products. The idea behind the WMS system is tracking of logistics processes taking place in the warehouse and the elimination of errors arising during the implementation of these processes.

The WMS warehouse system has a number of advanced features that determine its capabilities and the level of innovation introduced to the warehouse at the time of implementation. Each of them should have 4 main functions to understand the origins and introduce the full functionality of the system:

1. Receipt management - function compatible with the processes of receiving goods to the warehouse from different sources.

2. Release management - function used to process orders sent to customers.

3. Location management - these processes are used to place products in appropriate storage locations suggested automatically by the system.

4. Inventory control - possibility of immediate insight into the current stock specific products.

The main and most popular WMS functions:

• Adding and editing orders to suppliers,
• Adding and editing external parties,
• Orders from recipients,
• External releases,
• Production orders,
• Production orders,
• Audit documents,
• Inventory reports and analysis,
• Traceability.

A company that decides to implement a WMS system introduces standards in its warehouses that allow, among others, on:

• Full registration and control of logistics processes. Each logistic process carried out in the warehouse is reflected in the WMS system in the form of the so-called events or documents. This allows for free modeling and tracking of these processes, contributing to the minimization of mistakes (warehouse workers and other warehouse employees carry out operations in accordance with the instructions of the person supervising the work), elimination of "bottlenecks" in the warehouse, better customer service (completion of shipments to customers and loading is supervised by a system that ensures that the correct goods are issued)
• Supporting the placement of materials, goods, products and finished goods in the appropriate storage areas. WMS logistics provides analytical and optimization tools that allow for better use of warehouse space thanks to the analysis of many factors (e.g. material rotation coefficients or goods properties).
• Optimization of the costs of storage and implementation of warehouse processes and the elimination of errors during their implementation. The WMS system, thanks to the mechanisms of optimizing the work of the warehouse (e.g. the practical application of the FIFO, FEFO and LIFO strategies) and warehousemen (elimination of mistakes during the picking of shipments), allows you to reduce the time (and thus the costs) of performing basic tasks in the warehouse.
• Real-time reflection of resources. The WMS provides access to up-to-date information on inventory levels, the granulation of which can be adjusted to your needs - the system allows you to view inventory levels broken down by goods, warehouses, storage locations, batch/series numbers, etc. The WMS also provides access to archive stock levels (i.e. stock levels at the end of each day), which allow you to track the flow of goods in the warehouse.
• Organization of warehouse resources. By labeling storage places and logistic units (pallets, cartons, bags, etc.) with barcode labels, it is possible to freely control the distribution of goods in the warehouse. WMS provides access to real-time information on stock levels.

• Eliminate the circulation of paper documents. WMS introduces the idea of an electronic document (order) to the business process implemented in the enterprise, which allows to eliminate the circulation of printed documents from other systems (e.g. MRP, ERPII, "traditional" warehouse systems, financial and accounting systems) in the warehouse. This allows you to reduce the costs of warehouse maintenance and eliminate errors. WMS can also function in symbiosis with superior MRP, ERP class systems or financial and accounting systems. Integration with superior systems may include e.g. synchronization of documents (orders from suppliers, sales orders) and stock levels (i.e. storage of stocks divided into batches of material in the WMS and with accuracy to the warehouse in the master system).
• Control of efficiency and working time of warehousemen. Warehouse employees record operations (receipts, releases, corrections, shifts) and non-standard events (e.g. machine failures) using portable barcode scanners and individual user names. Thanks to the registration of each operation performed by the warehouseman in the WMS system, it is possible to settle both the time and the quality of work of warehousemen.
• Automation of warehouse processes (e.g. inventory) and cyclical tasks. Thanks to access to current stock levels, WMS automates carrying out periodic stocktaking in the warehouse. The role of inventory brigades comes down to scanning labels with barcodes of logistic units. WMS automates the process of stock reconciliation and inventory posting. This allows you to significantly reduce the time needed to carry out the inventory and thus shorten the downtime caused by the blocking of inventory.
• Adaptation of the enterprise to global standards and customer requirements. WMS allows e.g. for printing of logistic (shipping) labels in accordance with GS1 standard or an individual standard imposed on the company by the recipient.
• Full control of the flow of goods. WMS provides the company with a unique archival (historical) inventory module. Persons supervising the work of the warehouse are given the ability to track changes in the warehouse over a selected period of time. Access to such information allows develop and implement strategies for storing goods in the warehouse (e.g. goods with a high turnover rate can be stored closer to the loading buffer) and eliminate theft (it is possible to track down lost logistic units).

Recall that WMS system - definition - is in the first paragraph of this article. In this paragraph, we will deal with the issue of presentation of the WMS system.
Understanding the idea of the Weaver WMS system requires knowing the basic assumptions underlying the system and its hardware and software background.

The basic assumption of the Weaver WMS system is data identification based on a unique barcode. The following assumptions have been made in the further part of the document:

• Each storage location that is to be individually tracked by the system receives a permanent label with a unique barcode. The decision on what level of detail should be used to mark storage spaces (sectors, racks, shelves, slots, pallet spaces...) is made during the pre-implementation analysis based on the physical structure of the warehouse and the company's preferences.
• Each logistic unit is marked with a label with a unique barcode. From the point of view of the WMS, it is not important what a given logistic unit is physically - it can be a pallet, bag, cardboard box or a large-size product stored in bulk. A label with a unique barcode allows you to associate two basic pieces of information with each logistic unit, i.e. the quantity in the unit of measure (e.g. meters, kilograms) and the storage place where the logistic unit is located. Depending on the specifics of the company, additional parameters may also be associated with the logistic unit (e.g. batch number, expiration date, number of cartons on a pallet, delivery document number and delivery date, CVED reference number, etc.).
• Each employee is given a unique password-protected username. Employees using mobile terminals use the assigned user name to perform warehouse operations.
• All warehouse operations are registered using barcodes of warehouse locations and logistic units, but it is possible to enter other parameters (material indexes, quantities, etc.) from the terminal keyboard.

The vision of the WMS system describes the main assumptions of the WMS system. The finished vision in PDF format can be downloaded here.
The multimedia presentation of the system contains a brief description of the WMS system in the form of graphically accessible slides. You can download the presentationhere.