Analyst Insight:
The warehouse management system (WMS) market is mature, but these applications need added functionality to keep up with growing customer demand, transportation capacity issues and labor shortages. Current WMS software is insufficient for optimizing processes, such as balancing inventory, labor and space, that will lead to meeting customer requirements for on-time, in-full deliveries. Warehouse resource planning and scheduling needs to be used with the WMS to optimize and orchestrate activities within warehouse operations.
Warehousing has lagged other business areas in adopting advanced decision support capabilities, but this is no longer acceptable or sustainable. Warehouses now need more sophisticated tools to deal with the complexities of the modern supply chain.
Modern-day warehouses are complex due to additional constraints from labor shortages, lack of warehouse space and increased order volume. This new level of complexity drives the need to add sophisticated planning and scheduling tools to address constraint-based issues within the warehouse.