Mistakes Companies Make While Choosing a WMS
Selecting a WMS package to run your business might be a tricky situation to be in. It can either make or break your business; look out for these common pitfalls that you can avoid in the first place as they can jeopardize your initiative of automating your warehouse.
Business Requirements not well defined and not as per standard practices: This is where most of the companies make their first mistake. They need to get their house in order in the first place. Best would be to hire a logistics consultant (and sometimes the WMS vendor can themselves help) to advice on what needs to be done and what should not. Best would be to get all people from various departments and get things straightend out, this will help reduce unwanted modifications to the WMS package.
Cost of the implementation, rollouts and support: this depends mostly on the budget you set aside and whether the payback you get is justifiable. A two to three year payback time frame is reasonable, which also depends on the size and complexity of your business.
Integration with other existing systems: Look for the WMS's capability to seamlessly integrate with your legacy systems, with both upstream and downstream applications. Ask the vendor for references if they have done the similar exercises in the past.
Lack of Top Management Commitment: This is a must, without which the whole exercise may fall like a pack of cards when things go off course. The MD/CEO must understand why the WMS is being brought in, what benefits it can bring to business and the ROI timeframe. Based on this he needs to assign an appropriate budget in consultation with IT and the finance teams.
Get a Conference Room Pilot done: This is the best way to acertain whether the WMS will meet your business needs. Check whether what is being promised against what the software can actually perform. Create business cases that are closer to real time situations that you face during your warehousing opeartions.
Future Readiness: See on what technology platform the software has been built and its ability to scale up. Also if you have plans to implement advanced technologies like RFIDs, Voice Based Picking, Pick to Light, Conveyor base Putaway etc. in the future, make sure that the software is capable of handling these, or whether the vendor has included them in his development roadmap, in case these are not part of the current product suite.
