Warehouse Management System (WMS)
Warehouse Management System (WMS) is the most important part of the supply chain and mainly focus on the movement and storage of material inside a warehouse and handle all associated transactions such as shipping, receiving and picking.
The different functions of WMS are as below:
- It investigates about the progress of product through warehouse.
- It includes tracking system, communication between product stations and physical warehouse infrastructure
- It provides user with tools to analyze stocks and makes plans for inventory management.
- The main function of WMS is to help warehouse managers and workers during receiving, packing and shipping.
Rules and Regulation for WMS
WMS maintains a concrete rules and regulation which defines the general behavior of the warehouse operation. Some of the different types of rules and regulation followed by organizations are defined as below:
- It should be organizational specific.
- It should be healthy and safe.
- Good human resource management system.
- Highly secure
- Management of Pest
- Warehouse maintenance in terms of cleanness
- Should maintain quality.
- Should maintain records and report.
- Should maintain proper return of goods and exit scheme while closing operations.
- Discarding outdated and damaged goods.
Techniques to maintain Warehouse
A proper technique is needed to provide a clear vision about the operation for managers and donors. A special care needs to be taken to avoid limiting the use of local organization which might be needed to deal with local conditions. The technique must provide assistance for warehouse management system and must have some level of flexibility to outfit for unique situations. This can be gained by limiting the level of detail that technique document describes, permitting more flexibility by ordering ‘exemptions to allow departure from the process in order to enhance local performance, especially in case of emergencies.
The technique document provides step by step assistance to manage each phase of warehousing which is described as below:
- In the first step obtain and dispatch supplies
- Examine about the quality
- Complete storage of materials.
- Maintain stock movement
- Control documentation flow
- A method to detect and trade with stock losses
- Solution to manage rejected materials.
- Method to handle unwanted and outdated material and their disposal.
Basic principle of Warehouse Management System
- Prepare for incoming receipt process
- Storage Procedures such as
- A stock control system
- Occupational environment should be healthy and safety
- Efficient location management system
- Maintain outbound delivery process
Determining need for Ideal WMS
To prepare an ideal WMS, the following requirement must be considered:
- Maintain ideal quantity of goods
- Good transportation point
- Breaking mass location
- Technique to sort and combine different goods
- Increase speed of response
- Proper technique for defense against delay in the pipeline.
Warehouse Selection Process
Warehouse selection process depends on the following factors:
- Depends on the characteristics of the goods to be gathered
- Must consider characteristic of conducting equipment.
- Required time period of storage
- Spacious Parking space
- A secure area of management.
Warehouse Arrangement Technique
Space Arrangement
At the time of space arrangement, all the areas such as a general storage area, area for commodities receipt, picking and dispatch. The space arrangement must be done in such a way that the following activities are satisfied:
- Space for equipment parking
- Space for charging batteries