5 Case Studies on Warehouse Management System (WMS) Implementations

What is a Custom WMS?

A warehouse management system (WMS) is a powerful tool that optimizes and streamlines warehouse operations, including inventory management, picking and packing processes, shipping management, etc. A custom WMS, designed according to your unique workflow, eliminates unnecessary features and offers a user-friendly interface. With custom WMS development, you can prioritize factors that are crucial for your organization, ensuring that the system aligns perfectly with your unique business needs.

Let’s take a look at some custom WMS examples and how they’ve helped to overcome warehouse challenges for their respective owners.

Developing an E-3PL System for Warehouse Automation

It’s no longer enough for a modern warehouse management system to merely provide inventory visibility and assist in order picking and packing. Companies are now striving to maximize operational efficiency by choosing smart systems with advanced features that can simultaneously address a wide range of issues.

In line with this trend, a US-based startup embarked on the development of comprehensive WMS software that adheres to modern requirements. A large international team of developers, including HQSoftware specialists, was involved in the project.

The main goal was to create an advanced system that can automate and optimize many logistics processes and perform some of them autonomously. For example: automatically generate replenishment orders based on customer demand forecasts, or update goods availability and price for buyers in real-time.

In addition, the system facilitates warehouse audits, provides enhanced navigation, integrates with numerous third-party systems, and enables express picking and receiving. With all its innovative features, the E-3PL platform boasts an impressive 99.9% order accuracy and 99.4% same-day order delivery.

This WMS implementation case study highlights the potential for comprehensive software to enhance virtually any warehouse operation. Achieving this requires a thorough analysis of every process within your warehouse and careful consideration of how advanced technology can drive improvements. This is especially beneficial if you decide to turn to custom WMS software development, as this allows you to build a system that meets your business needs in the best possible way.

Implementing Predictive Analytics for Smart Inventory Management

Not wasting financial resources and being able to meet changing customer demand are deeply desired by every business and a must-have feature of modern WMS software.

Our client approached us with just such a request. They needed to upgrade a legacy WMS and implement predictive analytics capabilities to optimize warehouse inventory.

To accomplish this, our development team carefully selected the most suitable Machine Learning models capable of analyzing both historical and real-time operational data. The system provides data-driven replenishment recommendations tailored to specific parameters such as supplier delivery terms and minimum stock quantities. As a result, the client was able to reduce inventory costs by 15%.

The power of predictive analytics lies in its ability to learn and adapt to your unique business characteristics, offering personalized recommendations on how to improve it. So, you can benefit from optimal stock levels, excess-cost elimination, efficient space utilization, and a proactive response to customer needs, gaining a strong competitive edge in the market.

Providing Warehouse Navigation to Speed Up Order Picking

Since goods in a warehouse are not arranged as in a supermarket but are stored in boxes with numerical location identifiers, finding the right item can be a daunting task for pickers.

To address this WMS challenge and streamline order picking, our client — a retail company from Germany — decided to implement enhanced warehouse navigation. The feature creates optimized picking routes according to the picker and other items’ location and warehouse configuration.

The solution is delivered as a cross-platform mobile app that provides a map with a picking route and offers voice and visual guidance. With the app, pickers now spend 25% less time on order picking.

Even if you have many large warehouses with different layouts, this is no reason to overlook such a feature. Our developers can create an intuitive graphical interface that allows you to create any warehouse layout, as was implemented in this WMS case study.

Want to create a WMS solution to improve your warehouse operations? We’re ready to help!

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Business Development Manager

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Improving Supply Management with a WMS

In an ideal world, all suppliers would have compatible systems that seamlessly integrate with your WMS. However, in reality, you may encounter scenarios where a vendor relies on Google Spreadsheets for inventory tracking or where having a large number of suppliers makes collaboration within a single WMS challenging.

Well, we know several examples of WMSs that include a separate platform for onboarding and communicating with suppliers. We’ve developed such a platform as well. It enables a US retailer to connect with all suppliers in a single interface. Here, suppliers can upload product catalogs, manage item availability, and set prices, while the customer can place purchase orders and establish collaborative agreements.

An important feature of this platform is its ability to handle various data formats, enabling suppliers to post catalogs in their preferred format, which was quite a challenge for our development team. We also ensured system scalability, enabling the customer to expand their network of suppliers.

With this platform, the customer now enjoys seamless order placement, improved supply management, and a 37% reduction in product delivery delays.

Developing a WMS Module to Boost Marketplace Operations

The process of publishing and updating items on a single marketplace is relatively straightforward. You fill out the product details, add images, and configure display settings. This is true for several products or catalogs hosted on a single platform. But when you’re a 3PL provider responsible for hosting hundreds of clients with thousands of items on multiple marketplaces, it’s more like a nightmare.

Therefore, for one of the 3PL providers, the HQSoftware team has developed a module for the company’s custom supply chain software system that can automatically publish and update catalogs on several marketplaces and allows for manual item updates within one interface. By synchronizing with the customer’s system, the module ensures consistent and accurate data across platforms.

Within the module, the customer can also customize the display of different products according to specific parameters, such as particular display times, different prices for different times of the day, etc. With robust data exchange mechanisms implemented by our team, the module seamlessly uploads files with all data, speeding up product management tasks by 30%.

Even if you’re not a 3PL provider, such a feature can greatly simplify marketplace management. You no longer have to manually navigate through each product listing on every platform to make changes. All this can be done with a few clicks through a user-friendly interface.

How to Maximize WMS Efficiency?

Based on the expertise we’ve gained from our WMS implementation case studies, we understand that leveraging the advantages of WMS software takes more than simply finding or developing a suitable system. It’s also important to focus on proper WMS implementation. Consider the following actions.

• Define system requirements. Conduct a thorough analysis of your warehouse operations to understand how a new system can automate and improve established processes. This analysis will help you define the specific requirements for your WMS.
• Create an implementation plan. The step-by-step plan will help you overview the whole cycle of WMS implementation and control the progress. A common WMS implementation project plan example includes several key phases, starting with planning, then analysis, then implementation, testing, training, and finally, deployment.
• Clean up data. It’s a good idea to get rid of outdated or duplicate information that can lead to errors and slow down the process of migrating data to the new WMS.
• Integrate a WMS with other systems. This greatly enriches WMS functionality and allows you to get valuable insights from both internal and external platforms.
• Test a WMS. Verify that the system can process all your data smoothly without any interruptions or delays. It is important to test the system’s interaction with third-party systems and ensure it meets the needs of end-users.
• Train employees. Comprehensive training ensures that your employees know how to use the system effectively and helps overcome potential resistance to change. Create visual and interactive manuals and step-by-step tutorials that employees can refer to when they encounter difficulties.

But one of the most important factors in successfully implementing a WMS is choosing a reliable and trusted WMS provider, especially if you opt for a custom WMS. The capabilities of your system and its successful implementation will depend directly on the expertise of your development partner.

At HQSoftware, we have extensive experience not only in creating comprehensive WMS systems but also in working with cutting-edge technologies that can enhance WMS functionality, such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT, etc. Contact us to learn more about our WMS development services.