Moving from Excel to a Warehouse Management System Automate your warehouse more efficiently White Paper www.ibs.net
Automate your warehouse more efficiently Many manufacturers, distributors and retailers operate their warehouses using the popular spreadsheet application Microsoft Excel. Unfortunately, Excel is not always well suited for every purpose. A better solution is to entrust the management of your warehouse to a warehouse management system (WMS). A WMS is specially designed for the managing warehouses and features a number of essential industry best practices. For example, a WMS automates tasks that you would otherwise need to handle manually in Excel. It also prevents data-entry errors by applying a range of validation techniques. What s more, you always have a real-time view of the current status at your warehouse, with no need to wait for the daily e-mail with a spreadsheet that may have become out of date in the meantime. And if you are a third-party logistics (3PL) provider handling products for multiple customers in one or more of your warehouses, the explosion of spreadsheets becomes even more complex in an Excel-based system. In short, using spreadsheets to manage your warehouse is less than ideal and certainly less efficient. In this white paper we explain why Excel is not the ideal tool for managing your warehouse, and how a WMS can create a significant boost for your company. 2 IBS Dynaman
Five good reasons to exchange Excel for a WMS 1. Manual input and output Spreadsheets require manual input, which takes considerable time and limits your opportunities for growth. The more you grow, the more people you will need to input all of this data manually. Also, data-entry is a repetitive task. The same problem exists for output: periodically you need to e-mail the spreadsheet to everyone who requires the information. Often you also have to call the person to make sure that the report has arrived. Or else the customer will call you to ask whether a specific order has been dispatched since the last report was made. This again means lost time on your part. A WMS can go a long way towards automating input, for example by incorporating technologies such as RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) and voice picking. Output with a WMS also no longer requires any manual intervention from your staff. For example you can give your customers direct access to the information they need via a web-based customer portal. That way they no longer need to wait for your daily e-mail, but can generate the reports themselves at any time. They can also input their orders themselves via the customer portal. So to sum up, your staff no longer need to handle repetitive tasks and hence will have more time for more difficult jobs, allowing you to serve your customers even better. 2. Too little and too much flexibility Spreadsheets also have limitations in relation to how they can be organised: for example, will you display the information first by location and then by product, or the other way around? Changing the display order requires significant work since the structure of spreadsheets is not flexible. By contrast, a WMS stores all the data in a database, and can group and sort this data with just a few clicks in the way you want it. In other areas, spreadsheets can be very flexible when it comes to modifying formulas, adding rows and columns, filling in each cell as you want, and so on. However, if you use Excel to manage your warehouse, this flexibility becomes a disadvantage. After all, it is possible to enter multiple products in a spreadsheet with the same unique serial number, or changes can be made without your work colleagues being able to find out later who made a particular incorrect entry. A WMS by contrast ensures that your input is in line with rigid business logic. It also tracks all changes with respect to security and compliance. IBS Dynaman 3
3. Input errors Whether or not your spreadsheets work properly depends on the manual input they receive. And errors are easily made: for example you may enter an incorrect name or address, forget to fill in a required field, or leave out a figure in a serial number. Or when an order is dispatched, you may forget to update the inventory. Excel will not complain about these types of error, but there will be consequences. Any errors in data-entry then multiply when the data is processed. Excel does not have a functionality that highlights errors when they are made. A WMS, on the other hand, contains business logic and workflows to prevent these types of errors. Names and addresses are selected from a verified customer list, required fields that are incomplete block further completion of the form, serial numbers are verified based on their format, the inventory is automatically updated upon shipment, and so on. Starting from the time of data entry, a WMS uses it workflow and validation processes to ensure that the number of errors is kept to the minimum. 4. No real-time overview Since manual data-entry into spreadsheets is not exactly the most exciting job, this task is sometimes postponed. In the meantime, though, the spreadsheet no longer provides an accurate picture of the actual status at your warehouse. If the correct data has not yet been entered in your spreadsheet, you are taking decisions based on incorrect information. And if you e-mail the spreadsheet to your customers once a day, they will be using outdated information for almost the entire day. What we are saying is that a spreadsheet is always static: it reflects only a specific point in time. 5. Limited integration with the outside world Excel only has limited capabilities for importing input from other applications or special hardware, and for sending its output to other applications. This means that you may be missing out on many opportunities for better automating your warehouse and making its management more efficient. A good WMS, however, is an open package with many possibilities for integration. For example, it can be integrated with your ERP system so that your customer data is obtained directly from your customer database, or from your customers online stores, so that intervention on your part is no longer needed when orders are placed. And one area where Excel is unable compete with a WMS is when it comes to integration with specific warehouse hardware. Think for example of RFID readers or barcode scanners for scanning products, voice picking that allows an operator to obtain products from the warehouse without the need to enter data on a keyboard, and so on. Direct integration with production processes is also possible via a Manufacturing Execution System (MES). A WMS on the other hand is always able to provide upto-date information thanks to its detailed automation. And your customers are able to view the information they need in real-time via a web-based customer portal instead of having to wait for your already outdated spreadsheet to arrive. Also, a WMS is able to automatically and especially immediately send e-mails to customers, for example when an urgent order has been shipped. This means that customers no longer need to call you or look it up for themselves via the customer portal. 4 IBS Dynaman
Conclusion Microsoft Excel is a great tool for a variety of applications, but for all that it remains a generic tool. For warehouse management, it is best to exchange that spreadsheet application for a specialised warehouse management package (WMS) that enables you to get the most out of your system. The detailed automation, flexibility, input validation, real-time overview and extensive integration capabilities of a WMS allow you to make the best possible use of your warehouse s storage space and increase your productivity. IBS Dynaman 5
IBS Dynaman Next generation Warehouse & Operations Management Dynaman by IBS combines the functionalities of a typical WMS and MES (Manufacturing Execution System) in a single, integrated, flexible software solution. IBS uses Dynaman to target companies seeking to automate their logistics. The processes supported range from goods inward, inventory management and production tracking, through to shipment. The latest version includes a dock and yard management module for efficiently managing incoming and outgoing freight. Trucks, for example, are automatically routed to the correct loading bay by text message. Dynaman even allows you to define your workflows via drag-and-drop, without the need for custom programming. And Dynaman offers interactive visualisations of the warehouse, the yard and the production environment, as well as reports in multiple formats, including Excel and PDF. The entire 3PL provider process can be automated using Dynaman. IBS has implemented Dynaman systems in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and more, and has built up a customer portfolio in the 3PL market that includes names such as DSV, Westlandia, Europal and KTO. EMEA Region (Corporate Headquarters) IBS Sverige AB P.O. Box 1350, Hemvärnsgatan 8, SE-171 26 Solna, Sweden Phone: +46-8-627 23 00 Email: info@ibs.net Americas region International Business Systems US 90 Blue Ravine Road, Folsom, CA 95630, USA Phone: +1-916-985 3900 Email: info@ibs.net APAC region IBS Australia Pty Ltd Level 3, 12 Waterloo Road Macquarie Park NSW 2113, Australia Phone: +61 1300 882 467 Email: info@ibs.net www.ibs.net