How to choose the right WMS software?

Defining your needs to choose the right WMS

It's not uncommon to hear that in 100% of failed WMS projects, the specifications document was nonexistent . Given that it represents a significant volume of documents to produce (between 30 and 80 pages depending on the case, requiring approximately 10 to 30 days to complete), it can indeed be tempting to try and avoid it…

And yet, it's essential to define your needs rather than restricting yourself and locking yourself into solutions. But how do you properly define the functional scope of your future WMS and the constraints of your environment?

Examples of specifications may be freely available online, but with over 250 typical functional requirements, finding the perfect template for your organization will be challenging. To complicate matters further, some of these requirements are particularly difficult to grasp if the underlying logistics concepts of each WMS are not understood: logistical attributes of an item, picking control, the importance of real-time data, the consequences of partial shipments, the difference between kitting and manufacturing, dimensions and pre-packaging, and so on.

Our advice:

If you're looking for a solution tailored to your needs and organization, we recommend partnering with an integrator who ideally has in-house teams with field experience. This allows them to quickly identify your specific requirements. Some providers offer a one-day on-site visit to your warehouse to conduct a rapid audit and provide you with a preliminary budget along with an estimate of the immediate benefits of a WMS solution. This information will enable you to perform a quick return on investment calculation and justify to management a budget that aligns with your objectives. The ultimate goal of this step is to present a WMS investment project as a valuable addition to your company's development strategy.

The quality of the functional coverage to keep your WMS running as long as possible

When choosing a WMS, it is essential to consider the long-term viability and future evolution of the solution. Once installed in the warehouse, changing WMSs when they reach the limits of their functionality is not always straightforward.

Indeed, a WMS is at the heart of the company's processes :

• Orchestration of incoming, internal and outgoing physical flows,
• Piloting operations under constraints using thousands of algorithms,
• Real-time information manipulation allowing, for example, to validate the conformity of a receipt, to know one's exact and localized stocks, to inform the sales administration of a critical shipment, or to initiate an invoice to a customer.

The WMS therefore manages a highly complex network of interconnected physical and information flows, ultimately impacting financial flows. It is therefore crucial to ensure that the WMS can adapt to new legislation, the introduction of a new product range, a new customer, or new distribution channels.

Our advice:

We recommend choosing a publisher that has a wide range of clients in different sectors, which ensures that future needs will likely be covered by the standard version of the WMS.

Another positive indicator is the level of revenue the vendor invests annually in R&D to improve its product. You can therefore ask for details on the percentage of staff dedicated to these innovation and solution development activities. Finally, because no vendor can do everything, it's important to ensure that your future WMS is open and connectable to solutions provided by third-party specialists in their respective fields (TMS, CMS, OMS, ERP, WCS, etc.). To do this, research the vendor's IT and infrastructure partners and ask them what types of applications they have developed in the past.

The ability to integrate the WMS into the company's technical and IT environment

One of the most complex aspects of any WMS project is its integration into the company's environment. It's "a project within a project" and often the critical path to successful WMS implementation. The work required, for example, to create a VPN (Virtual Personal Network) or interface with an existing ERP system (mapping), should not be underestimated. Indeed, several pitfalls and obstacles can arise on the road to success.

Regarding, for example, the IT service provider who will be commissioned to develop the interfaces:

• Is its workload schedule compatible with that of the WMS project?
• Has he ever implemented interfaces with a WMS ?
• Is he able to offer on-call service during the first few days of startup?

Regarding the exchanges between an ERP and a WMS:

• Is the existing data of good quality (accuracy or completeness)?
• Is their format compatible with WMS?

Our advice:

A WMS integrator must be able to present examples of interfacing with numerous systems and demonstrate their ability to manage IT projects of this nature:

• Describe precisely the different data formats that will need to be exchanged,
• To manage, advise and challenge the IT service provider who will be responsible for developing the interfaces,
• Surround yourself with third-party partners specializing in IT infrastructure to, for example, create and manage a fully web-based Virtual Machine, implement a VPN, or configure Android devices.