IEN: Can companies integrate material handling technology with legacy/traditional parts of the enterprise?
Lagaly: One of the most significant trends in the last several years has been the move toward purchasing and implementing Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) software by small- and mid-sized companies to integrate materials handling systems with the traditional or "legacy" parts of the enterprise. Most WMS were and are primarily designed to facilitate only inbound activities such as receiving, putaway, and inventory control processes. Due to this limitation, integrating any outbound automation functionality beyond a simple RF terminal requires major modifications to the base WMS software, a costly, risky proposition in today''s era of lean budgets and squeezed profit margins. Costs and risk rise significantly when coding software modifications for subsequent upgrades to new versions of WMS software.
One answer to the dilemma of how to integrate outbound activities without incurring the increased expense and risk of software modifications is to implement a non-inventory based component to the existing framework that will bridge the gap between materials handling technology and existing/legacy WMS or ERP systems. FKI Logistex Real Time Solutions'' own product, Outbound Productivity Suite (OPS), is one such product. A unique non-inventory based suite of integrated software modules, OPS interfaces seamlessly with legacy WMS or ERP systems without requiring any additional software modifications.
Because it is designed with functionality and flexibility in mind, OPS is able to take on the task of integrating all outbound processes for material handling equipment throughout the operation including multiple automated picking technologies like pick-to-light, RF, voice-directed, RF-carts, and carousels. OPS creates waves, batches, and sub-waves, thereby managing and directing the entire outbound order fulfillment and shipping process and balancing workloads across all zones and storage areas. Additionally, it allows management by exception and provides supervision alarming to traditional displays as well as to Internet-enabled devices such as PDAs, pagers, and cell phones.
Because of this advanced functionality and robustness, outbound activity suites like OPS prolong and enhance the lifespan of most legacy and ERP systems at a fraction of the cost and greatly reduced risk. By implementing OPS, small- to mid-size enterprises gain a level of advanced functionality not found in base WMS packages, while not having to worry about the long-term burdens of coding and maintaining software modifications.
As 80-90% of the ROI associated with new and re-engineered warehouse and DC projects encompasses outbound processes, solutions like OPS will begin to play a more significant role in years to come.