How to Improve Order Fulfillment With AI

By Keith Moore - Posted February 5, 2024

Analyst Insight: Artificial intelligence and machine learning have emerged as transformative technologies for the supply chain, including in the warehouse. AI-powered systems enhance warehouse operations and improve order fulfillment. AI tools can sit on top of a warehouse management system to dynamically orchestrate all activities within the warehouse, and make the WMS more responsive to demand changes.  

Every shipper running a supply chain is concerned with order fulfillment. Will they be able to get the right product to the correct location at the right time? Such a concern isn’t unfounded. Even with the best planning team in the world, the execution phase is where the rubber meets the road.

Most warehouses use a WMS to automate warehouse operations. Those systems are good at managing inventory, age, and space; managing a work queue; zoning a distribution center; and cataloging and visualizing all receipt, shipment and order information. A WMS is terrible at:

• Understanding labor, space, and task constraints to optimize entire site operations;
• Intelligently allocating inventory and managing cuts;
• Creating chained tasks that factor in proximity-to-task for all associates;
• Simultaneously managing receipts and shipments to ensure that the right inventory movements are optimized, and
• Transferring inventory across multi-building campuses.