Page 4 - Logistics News June 2017
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Thought Leadership



                       The Evolving Distribution




                        Centre Technology Stack




                                                                                                 By Roberto Michel

                   With the growth of e-commerce, the technology stack for distribution centres is
                expanding. Why is  WES/WCS software gaining prominence and how are operations
                                          expanding their use of data science?



            THE FAMILIAR technology stack of warehouse          analytics, in addition to WCS solutions’ more
            management systems (WMS) to manage                  traditional role of coordinating automation and
            transactions and inventory at the distribution      material fl ow.
            centre level and then hand order requirements
            down to the automation layer is not as simple as it   The role of WES
            used to be. With the complexities of e-commerce     WES solutions provide visibility and management
            fulfi llment, the need to orchestrate and optimize   capabilities around order requirements, inventory
            operations is driving the need for advanced         information, and equipment and labour resources,
            execution software in the middle of the stack and   observes Mike Dunn, group vice president with
            for more optimization tools.                        Fortna, a distribution consulting and engineering
               In short, the DC tech stack has changed. It’s no   fi rm. “The interesting technology questions inside
            longer just WMS on top, warehouse control system    the DC are: ‘What systems should I own to have
            (WCS) software in the middle, and automated         visibility into those three components,’ and then,
            materials handling systems at the fl oor level.      ‘What software can I use to really optimise my
            The stack has expanded, and while not every         processes?’” Dunn says.
            DC needs the same foundation, failure to grasp         “When we think about how to really optimize
            evolving areas could end up stacking the deck       inside of a warehouse, it’s about creating
            against omni-channel success. What’s more, while    chunks of work that are large enough to drive
            automation hardware—including robotic goods-to-     productivity, but small enough to react to and
            person systems, pick-to-light systems and high-     satisfy customer demands,” says Dunn. “And the
            end sortation—play a role in the tech stack for     optimal size for work may change every hour.
            e-commerce, even automation providers say the       In the morning, you may be able to process a
            stack is software driven.                           larger chunk of work effi  ciently while still meeting
               E-commerce means that DCs have a greater         demand, but later in the day, you may need to
            volume of small orders that make it more complex    use much smaller chunks of work, which are
            to orchestrate systems, not only within the four    suboptimal from a productivity standpoint, but
            walls of the DC, but with order fulfi llment and     are necessary to meet demand.”
            transportation management decisions. “Everyone        While WES has gained in importance, it
            is being pushed to ship smaller and faster,” says   can’t do everything, says Dunn. Omni-channel
            Joe Vernon, senior manager of North America         companies have often turned to DOM to manage
            supply chain technologies for the consulting fi rm   where orders should be fulfi lled from, and at many
            Capgemini. “The demand/fulfi ll cycle has been       companies, a WMS handles overall inventory, says
            cut from days to hours, and freight costs are more   Dunn. Down at the automation level, he adds, DCs
            often absorbed now, rather than passed along to a   often have strong interest in technology such as
            customer.”                                          goods-to-person systems or pick-to-light systems
               Vernon sees distributed order management         that minimize or simplify the labour requirements
            (DOM) solutions, as well as new types of            for order picking. But Dunn sees WES as the
            optimization software that can synchronize pick     best solution for the order releasing and resource
            sequencing, staging and loading, as gaining in      management decisions that need to be made
            importance.                                         around order priorities.
               Perhaps the biggest shift in the DC tech stack     “We believe the best solve for many of these
            for e-commerce has been the emergence of            business problems is going to be a combination of
            warehouse execution system (WES) software,          WCS and WMS capabilities,” Dunn says. “Finding a
            an evolution of WCS. WES brings in richer           way to have those two types of systems work well
            functionality around order releasing and wave       together to release and process work is going to
            management, resource optimization and               be the optimal solution.”


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