4 Things to Consider Before You Invest in a Warehouse Management System (WMS)

At Concentrus, we specialize in helping distributors with their own warehouse pick the best warehouse management system (WMS) to meet their business needs. As such, there are a few items that we recommend our clients consider to determine if they even need a WMS, and if so, what kind of features they should be looking for. 

Before you even look for a WMS solution, take a step back to assess your business needs in terms of the following: 

1. Inventory Tracking Requirements
   Do you simply need to know what items you have on hand? Or do you need to take it a step further and track the movement by item, SKU, bin, pallet, etc.? Do you need to move product quickly because it expires? Or does your product have a long shelf life?
2. Data Accuracy
   Do you have inconsistencies in your data? How is that impacting your business? Is your data current? Do you see a lot of errors being made?
3. Audit Traceability
   Using a paper or spreadsheet-based WMS is not real-time, which is fine if you do not need to know that information for auditing purposes. Or, are you looking to have controls in place to help the auditing process go faster with data that you can rely on?
4. Employee Autonomy
   Do you want your employees to be able to take ownership of the warehousing process – including self-correcting issues and being proactive about mitigating any foreseeable issues? Or, would you prefer to direct them as needed and react to issues as they arise?

Considering a new WMS is really a two-pronged approach. You need to consider your business needs from the perspective of what features you need your WMS solution to have, but you also need to consider what you need from a functionality perspective to empower your employees and streamline your business processes.

If you are struggling to answer the questions above or would like help assessing a WMS solution, Concentrus is offering an on-site warehouse systems and processes assessment to qualifying companies. Click on the button below to see if your company qualifies to receive a free on-site warehouse assessment by one of our experts, normally $2,000.  

In the meantime, see what drove Steve the Warehouse Manager and Wendy the Controller to implement a tailored WMS, and how they used that solution to increase productivity.

Steve the Warehouse Manager

Wendy the Controller