Few places feel the weight of new customer demands like the warehouse. Not only do goods need to be delivered more quickly and packaged in ways that catch the eye to start building a good impression from the moment they arrive, but individuals also want to know the status of their delivery as soon as they click “buy.”
The solution to this pressure is mobility, which many companies now adopt in their warehouses as well as their larger supply chain. It provides many clear benefits for your team and customers, plus it prepares you for the technological demands your customers will have tomorrow.
In the strictest sense, mobility in the warehouse is the connection of your workers to a warehouse management system (WMS) no matter where they go or what they’re working on right now through mobile devices. These options range from scanners and smartphones to rugged tablets and other wearables that can deliver pick-and-pack information.
Mobility covers both these devices and the WMS that runs them. A mobile WMS provides tracking and analytics around your warehouse workforce in the aggregate as well as on the individual level. This information can assist with benchmarking as well as advanced analysis to rearrange pick lanes and waves or overall warehouse layout to improve space utilization. And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The core advantages of a WMS are the data that it collects and the application of that data to different warehouse activities. Here are a few business insights this data can provide:
While the differences between most on-premise and cloud WMS options are narrowing, there are still a few distinctions worth noting. These might give cloud systems an edge if you’re picking a new WMS soon.
Form and functionality are roughly the same for both options; there’s not much one can do that the other can’t. The biggest difference is the speed at which functionality updates. Cloud systems tend to be a little faster and work with a wider range of mobile tech.
So, if you want to upgrade your scanners or tablets to the latest model, cloud systems will generally provide this support more quickly. A cloud platform is more generalized and has more clients, while on-premise allow for greater customization. This means, in general, your cloud vendor will have a little more incentive to support new hardware and software sooner. Plus, their techs will work on the support, while on-premise might require your team to do the initial troubleshooting for updates and upgrades.
A mobile warehouse management system is an efficient tool to ensure you’re running at your best. Adoption of this tech is picking up steam every month, and soon it’ll be a must-have platform to keep up with your competition. It’s inevitably coming to the warehouse, so the question is when you’re ready for the boost.