A proven warehouse management system (WMS), SAP Business One helps food manufacturers store and track valuable information about raw ingredient materials used to produce their end products. Should a quality issue arise in your supply chain, WMS software information controls let you identify all of your finished goods developed from the affected material.
What is a WMS?
A warehouse manufacturing system is a software application engineered to optimize your storage facilities and distribution centers. Warehouse owners leverage these systems to help them remain competitive while keeping up with increasing customer demands and rising costs. A WMS helps manufacturers and distributors stay in control of their supply chain cycle to deliver consistent customer service.
Companies seek out WMS software application solutions to centralize routine warehouse tasks that usually entail tracking stock locations and inventory levels under a single interface. Warehouse management system programs are commonly packaged as stand-alone systems. Other WMS platforms come as part of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The high-end platforms incorporate advanced routing and tracking technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) and voice recognition.
The benefits of implementing a WMS
A reliable WMS enables manufacturing and distribution companies to assume complete control over the production and movement of goods within a warehouse. An effective WMS should:
- Shorten storage intervals
- Economize the materials handling
- Reduce picking and processing times
- Optimize Warehouse space utilization
- Eliminate obsolete inventory
- Improve on-time delivery metrics
Warehouse owners who implement SAP Business One realize a significant return on their investment after finding:
- Improved overall warehouse productivity
- Higher customer satisfaction levels
- More efficient inventory management
- Increased throughput and sales
- Reduced labor overhead
- Simplified vendor and supplier management
Warehouse management applications also help organizations develop variance reports to measure the effectiveness of a given process. A well-implemented WMS lets business owners and managers access accurate key performance indicators (KPIs) for improved management of their employees and general operations. A WMS collects and organizes valuable data frequently used to enhance operational efficiency by identifying process errors. The deep insight into your operations ensures that you always maintain the correct inventory levels between raw materials and the end product.
3 ways a WMS improves manufacturing and distribution
There are dozens of customizable software options available for your warehouse management system. The features and benefits vary depending on the precise nature of your business. Here are just three ways that a world-class WMS improves the warehouse and distribution operations for small to mid-sized business owners:
1. Improved supply chain visibility
There are few commodities more vital than real-time visibility into your manufacturing process through plentiful data. When you have access to overarching information about your supply chain and inventory levels, you’re in a better position to control your costs and react to increasing custom demands without interruptions or delays.
A proven WMS solution like SAP Business One consolidates all your business data under one application. At the same time, you gain deeper insight across your entire supply to make more reliable data-driven decisions that lead to increased revenue. SAP Business One is an integrated WMS software that works to synchronize your operational management, production, accounting, and sales data under a single platform.
Once you implement a WMS solution like SAP Business One, you can automate the evaluation of materials movement to provide real-time assessments of costs and price changes. A warehouse management system like our Agility Essentials eliminates the need for manual operators for process tracking. Along with that, you relinquish the associated element of human error and labor overhead.
2. Fewer bottlenecks and more sales
SAP Business One lets you automate your sales orders for a more streamlined process because every order created is tied directly to a real-time inventory count. You can perform up-to-the-minute inventory checks to control your stock levels. This assures that you never overpromise and underdeliver. The software gives you highly accurate quantity data, adjusting for what you’ve already committed to other purchasers, inbound purchases, and production orders.
A well-purposed WMS keeps track of your goods receipts across multiple warehouse sites, allowing you to track each of your stock transfers from one facility to another. Should your inventory levels adjust, SAP Business One accounts for the change by instantly crediting or debiting the inventory variances the moment the stock movement is recorded.
Every sales order is logged in SAP Business One. When a new order generates, the system automatically verifies the product’s availability in your warehouse. Once the software confirms the items, it commits the specific quantity in the inventory. This way, concurrent orders never overlap, and your stock count consistently adds up.
3. Better production scheduling with Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
The Material Requirements Planning (MRP) in SAP Business One is engineered to help businesses maintain optimal production and scheduling planning across several layers of their processes. This automated solution supplants previous ad hoc production scheduling methods with a structured procedure that draws from real-time data from multiple sources. SAP Business One MRP provides an accurate overview of your production and supply chain to improve decision-making.
Access to the MPR wizard feature means you have more control over specifying timelines. Access to real-time inventory data means more accurate and reliable planning since SAP Business One uses this information to recommend material purchases, including precise quantities and when you’ll need them, along with other critical resource requirements.
After your procurement team reviews the recommended production materials and purchase orders, you can generate the necessary quantities at the specified time required to manufacture the final product and fulfill the sales order. SAP Business One takes into account all the requirements to produce the item, from product materials to labor resources.
Flexible and scalable WMS software solutions for SAP Business One
If you’re searching for more validation, visibility, and velocity in an all-in-one WMS solution for SAP Business One, consider Agility Essentials from WiSys. To learn more about this highly scalable and adaptable system that can grow along with your business, call 770-955-3550 today.