Columbus WMS is the solution for the distribution center

Allows to solve the most important problems of warehouse logistics: increase capacity, provide completeness of execution of orders, reduce commodity and financial losses, lower storage costs and processing.

The solution Columbus WMS for the warehouses/distribution centers (DC) is developed based on Microsoft Dynamics AX. Implementation of WMS allows to automate all necessary business processes of a warehouse and to solve the most important problems of warehouse logistics: increase in capacity, ensuring completeness of execution of orders, decrease in commodity and financial losses, cutting of costs for storage and processing. The solution for management of warehouse logistics contains instruments of information analysis for decision making and provides the quickest reaction on any change of a situation in the market.

Competitive advantages in the field of warehouse logistics

Achievement of planned amount of shipments and completeness of execution of orders

• Automated management of stocks
• Address storage
• High speed of selection of orders
• Operational elimination of errors of placement
• Cross docking

Decrease in financial losses

• Dynamic model of a warehouse (the bigger range on the same area of a warehouse)
• Control of the prices of suppliers at an acceptance stage

Reduction of dependence on a human factor

• Data on placement of goods are stored in a warehouse in a system
• A system controls actions of users
• Low requirements to qualification of users
• Personification of transactions, separation of responsibility of warehouse workers

Improvement of quality of management of a warehouse

• Flexibility when implementing the new ideas - an opportunity to enter changes into the system by forces of regular programmers
• Operational receiving analytical state-of-health data of a warehouse and merchandising.

The warehouse is a key link of a logistic chain of most the enterprises and there should not be its "a narrow neck" at all. Performance and high-speed performance of a warehouse complex depends on a set of criteria. The main part of them concerns job management of personnel, and in this material we will consider how possibilities of the solution Columbus WMS on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform can support them.

The perspective of management of a warehouse complex is defined, first of all, by the speed and quality of processing of goods. The task following on importance it is necessary to call management of number of staff, even rather small deviations from the optimal number of employees have a serious impact on efficiency of a warehouse in general. Along with it there is a problem of the growing volumes of staff costs. Without specialized tool kit to influence the above-stated factors impracticablly. The full-function solution of the class WMS which includes all necessary management tools can act as an effective leverage over work of personnel.

Performance of any accounting system, and in our case – WMS, is estimated on the narrowest link. You can buy the most expensive and reliable loading equipment, construct a warehouse under the necessary volumes of goods, consider specifics of products, but all this will not bring the expected results if you do effectively not direct the main tool of a warehouse, namely – human resources.

The arsenal of the solution Columbus WMS includes a set of different functions which optimize work of personnel. Automation of process of issue of tasks and processing of their results actually removes such area as task management (job control) from the management of a warehouse. Information exchange between a system and employees happens in real time, tasks are automatically separated on zones of a warehouse and the loading equipment. In a system the priority of task performance is also considered. One more problem which is solved by WMS is decrease in a share of movements of personnel on a warehouse within one day. According to the statistics movements make the main part of time in an operating cycle of the employee – from 30 to 50%, in the most complex cases they occupy nearly 80%.

When using WMS at the contractor need to address the operator of a warehouse for a task and to announce him results of work vanishes. A system automatically issues necessary tasks on a data collection terminal and loads results of their execution. In that case when the employee for one reason or another cannot perform a task, the terminal will allow to send to a system an online request. For example, the collector should pick up a certain type of goods from cells. However in course of execution of a task it becomes clear that there are no physically these goods in a cell. A system will prompt other cell containing suitable goods in time, and the contractor should not distract from accomplishment of the current task.

In a warehouse not only data collection terminals, but also any other warehouse technologies and the equipment can be used. For example, system of voice actuation or normal "paper" tasks. Correctly customized system will allow to manage time of the contractor, including so-called idle time (waiting of a task). Optimization of tasks through WMS only feasible tasks allow to issue accounting of the loading equipment using which warehouse transactions are executed and to each employee.

Use of WMS allows to involve effectively in a warehouse of technology of address storage that increases the accuracy of stocks and simplicity of execution of operations. All this considerably reduces requirements to the level of knowledge and qualification of personnel. In practice such situations when the employee who is not knowing Russian, but received idle time, the intuitive tool for execution of operations gains the lead on a warehouse quite often meet. For this purpose he just remembers a combination of actions which need to be executed on a data collection terminal.

Effective management of tasks is among the minimum requirements of a warehouse. After the situation with the organization of work of a complex stops being problem, there is a need for motivation of employees, assessment of their deposit to a company performance and also for fall forward of accomplishment of business processes. The company is interested to pay the employee for precisely performed amount of works. Implementation of WMS opens a set of different approaches to creation of motivational schemes and the systems of awards/penalties. A system remembers all actions made in a warehouse; allows to define precisely where when also who executed this or that transaction what loader at the same time was used, what pallet and with what nomenclature structure participated in this transaction. The Russian realities provide use of different methods of motivation, without any limit. In general, two basic approaches are distributed. The essence of the first approach consists in paying the contractor for actually performed work. So or to calculate the salary of employees according to the volume of their works, or to create a bonus system, for example, for the first ten leaders in a warehouse.

In the second case employees productivity increases not only at the expense of spirit of rivalry, but also due to creation of additional conditions of work. All necessary tools are provided to the contractor, simple and clear tasks are issued, optimal routes of his movements on a warehouse are calculated. At the same time results of each employee are estimated in comparison with all others. Morally and financially motivated employee is, as a rule, much more effective in comparison with warehouse workers whose salary level is supported at one level. It is necessary to add that tools of full-function WMS allow to implement any motivational schemes.

Using the automated solution of the class WMS at the same time it is possible to increase capacity of each warehouse transaction, to receive necessary tools for transparent management of employees, to open new ways of development and optimization of a warehouse complex. So if in a warehouse of your company for work with personnel the mechanism of manual control is still used, it is necessary to think of the choice of the suitable WMS solution seriously.