Warehouse management systems are becoming more innovative by the month. Automation improves productivity and accuracy in ways that weren’t possible only a year ago. Orders can be grouped intelligently enough to reduce travel time, and that pace can be further enhanced by high-speed sorting, automatic storage and retrieval systems.

Every aspect of warehouse automation is controlled by your IT system. Warehouse management systems (WMS) can’t function without accurate data input, and they shouldn’t be left to their tasks without the support of analytics. The best systems improve efficiency, speed, and cost. It’s tempting to rush into warehouse automation thinking that if it’s technologically evolved, it must be better than what you’ve been using until now, but your software should be built around your strategy. Your strategy should not be built around your software. WMS platforms are complex. They must be honed to suit your unique inventory and the rest of your business processes.

Logistics is the biggest influencer on your customer satisfaction ratings. If that seems like a blanket statement, then think of it from your customers’ perspective. Happiness is getting the product they ordered quickly or at least on time. Their opinion of your business is rapidly broadcast across social media and review sites. What they say influences potential customers and therefore the growth of your business. The tricky bit is balancing 5-star fulfilment with tightly controlled costs and efficiencies.

Available space inevitably gets used up under normal operating conditions. It’s almost a law of nature, just like Parkinson’s Law (work expands to fill the available time). Opportunistic bulk discount purchases, overstocking, old stock or just inefficiency eats up costly space. Suddenly you cannot add new lines that consumers are demanding. Your stock represents too much capital. Business is constrained by your warehouse capacity but expanding to an additional facility may not be feasible at this point. The only option is to increase storage space by better utilisation of what you have available. Where do you start?

Automating your warehouse can deliver very significant improvements in productivity and efficiency. It is possible to reduce costs while improving safety and improving productivity.

In this week's article, in the series from members of the Automated Material Handling Systems Association (AMHSA), David Hayward-Browne, Director of Logistics Planning Consultants International (LPC), considers one of the key requirements when procuring an automated system: the use of Requirement Specifications within the project process and their benefits. LPC is a consultancy that has extensive experience in helping companies automate and run their operations.

You have just bought your shiny new automated system. It has been installed and commissioned. In some respects, that was the easy part. There are challenges of course in doing so, but you have had a lot of expertise from the supplier and you have your own project team. But the people who delivered the solution will move on. It is vital for the successful operation of the system that knowledge is gained and retained within the operations team, and that processes and team are put in place to run and maintain the system. The easiest way to accomplish this is for key people to be part of the project team or work closely with them.

Let’s start with the easy bit – you don’t have to know what equipment and systems you want………..at the start! Though it should be said that it is a good idea to at the end of the process, when you sign a contract. However you should be clear on your objectives. The objectives should focus on your requirements, such as reducing labour, improving productivity, reduction in costs, managing growth, etc. If you have a vision of a brave new world in your warehouse rather than focusing on your objectives you should probably go and lie down until it goes away.

Operation

The operational objectives for the management of an automated system are to drive throughput and improve productivity and efficiency. In order to do this, information and data are required to inform the decision making. There is a lot of information and generally a range of reports available from the control system managing the automation. Care should be taken to determine the key facts and statistics required and the reports and dashboards designed to present this in a clearly defined manner.