Introduction
A warehouse
management system (WMS)
is a key part of the supply
chain and
primarily aims to control the movement and storage of materials
within a warehouse and
process the associated transactions, including shipping, receiving,
putaway and picking.
More
precisely, warehouse management involves the receipt, storage and
movement of goods, (normally finished goods), to intermediate storage
locations or to a final customer. In the multi-echelon model for
distribution, there may be multiple levels of warehouses. This
includes a central warehouse, a regional warehouses (serviced by the
central warehouse) and potentially retail warehouses (serviced by the
regional warehouses)
PICK and PACK
Pick
and pack is a part of a complete supply
chain management process
that is commonly used in the retail distribution of goods. It entails
processing small to large quantities of product, often truck or train
loads and disassembling them, picking the relevant product for each
destination and re-packaging with
shipping label affixed
and invoice included. Usual service includes obtaining a fair rate of
shipping from common as well as expediting truck carriers.
Pick and Pack
services are offered by many businesses that specialize in supply
chain management solutions.
Case
picking is the gathering of full cartons or boxes of product.
This is often done on a pallet.
In the consumer products industry, case picking large quantities of
cartons is often an entry level employee's task. There is, however,
significant skill required to make a good pallet load of product. Key
requirements are that cartons not be damaged, they make good use of
the available cube (space) and be quick to assemble.
Warehouse
management system products
create pick paths to minimize the travel distance of an order
selector, but often neglect the need to maximize the use of cube,
segregate products that should not touch or minimize damage.
Wave picking
Wave
picking is a term for a process used in a warehouse
management system to
describe a process to support managing the work of a warehouse or
distribution center. Wave picking is an application of short interval
scheduling, to assign the workload into intervals (waves) to allow
management to coordinate the several parallel and sequential
activities to complete the work.
- To organize the sequence of orders and assignment to waves, consistent with routing, loading and planned departure times of shipping vehicles or production requirements, etc., to reduce the space required for shipping dock handling to assemble orders and load; and
- To assign staff to each wave and function within a wave, with the expectation that all the work assigned to each wave will be completed within the wave period, providing management with the ability to monitor and manage performance throughout the day, and respond in a timely way to problems that occur, and more effectively utilize the staffing throughout the shift.
Additional benefits
of wave picking include the improved ability to
- measure productivity within a function;
- budget labor;
- estimate the throughput capacity based on staffing levels;
- evaluate the impact of changes in methods and equipment by function;
- provide feedback regarding performance; and
- better understand the nature of the workload as it changes seasonally, as a consequence of demand, and as a consequence of sales efforts and marketing campaigns.
Oracle WMS.
Oracle Warehouse
Management System (WMS) is an advanced inventory module with lot of
efficient, unique and enhanced features that improves productivity of
distribution centers, manufacturing and inventory handing processes.
It supports manual data entry, data entry through barcode scanning
and through RFID too.
It enables
organizations to maximize their utilization of labor, space and
equipment investments by coordinating and optimizing resource usage
and material flows across a global supply chain on a single platform.
Key Business Processes supported by Oracle WMS are:
- Inbound Logistics (Receiving from Supplier, Returns, Corrections)
- Outbound Logistics (Picking, Packing, Shipping)
- Reverse Logistics (Customer Returns)
- Stocking and Internal Inventory Movements
- WIP JOB Assembly completion, Component issues