Warehousing

WAREHOUSING

LOG 502: Module 3 Case Assignment

Student:  Edward M. Massey

Dr. Thanasak Ruankaew

Trident University International

Introduction

        In the past, warehousing of raw materials or finished goods was mainly considered as an after though for business entities.  If corporate leader and or managers ever needed to inspect or visit one of their warehouses, all they actually saw in their minds eye was a huge large facility that was used to store their stuff; this also includes having the paradigm “out of sight out of mind”, because it was also a place to store their unused or obsolete products and equipment.  That, idea has significantly changed within the past five to ten years; today corporate leaders understand that warehouses play a vital role in the success and failure of their business.  They along with many of the mangers have come to see that warehouses play a critical intermediate role within the supply chain, which affects both costs and services.  To take this idea one step further, warehouses are also being recognized as one of the main operations which allows companies in providing tailored services for their customers along with possibly gaining a competitive advantage within their specified industry.  Through the use of our current technological advancements, companies have now begun to incorporate specific technological innovations into the day to day warehouse operations; known as Warehouse Management System (WMS).  The purpose of this paper is to discuss why state of the art WMS is so critical to the operation of today’s modern warehouse facilities.  

Why is WMS Needed?

        Most manufacturing companies possess either warehouses or contain warehouse space within their facility or property.  Having gone through the rigorous warehouse development process of ascertaining and establishing a functional warehouse by having the interior space divided into receiving, storage and shipping areas.  Emplacing the proper flooring which can handle the static load capacity; then establishing the proper clearing height as well as defining the ideal bay size.  The exterior layout plan has also been thoroughly thought out in order to allow for the efficient entering and exiting of the transportation assets.  However, with all this forethought, the consequences of managing complex warehouses both efficiently and effectively is still a challenge for today’s business enterprises.  Planning the warehouse design and day to day operations is a proactive step, whereas controlling this monster which was created is more of a reactive event; therefore, with the use of technology, corporate leader and warehouse managers are strong advocates for installing some form of WMS within the facility (de Koster & Smidts, 2013).  A study was conducted in India on one its biggest retail companies that sold consumer products from fashion, food and general merchandise.  The company operated three warehouses, in which one had been automated with WMS, the other two were manually run.  The study found that the manually operated warehouse consistently attained high cycle times of 773 minutes, of which 537 minutes were labeled as non-value added time.  The one main reason for this  is that since no automated system was being utilized to schedule vehicle arrival times, many of the products ended up being stored on the floor until they were eventually placed into their proper storage locations.  The warehouse utilizing the WMS system reduced the cycle time by 236 minutes, and the non-value time reduced to 95 minutes.  Additionally, WMS reduced the [pic 1]required manpower by 40 percent.  Table 1 provides the improvement times and percentages with the use of WMS.

The primary function of WMS is to receive information from the upper level host system and then translate this information for daily operations.  WMS is the interface that manages processes, people and equipment at the operational level.  There are currently three types of WMS’s (Ramaa, Subramanya, & Rangaswamy, 2012):

        1.  Basic WMS:  This system support stock and location control only.  Operators mainly register information in which storing and picking instructions can be generated.  The main focus for this system is on throughput.