Why a Warehouse Management System Helps Manufacturers Stay Agile

By ECI’s Technical Engineer for ERP systems M1 and JobBOSS², Adrian Connard.

The warehouse floor can be a hectic place. It’s busy and the time pressures to deliver stock loom hard and fast. When you’re under the pump, it’s far too easy to guestimate stock levels and that can have serious consequences.

At ECI Solutions, we’ve made the right way to do things, the easiest way—the quickest and most convenient. This means you or any stock manager wanting to up your work speed, can do so knowing you’re not cutting corners. We’ve developed a new mobile app for manufacturers to be able to effectively and efficiently manage your warehouses. It’s called the WMS mobile app.

The new Warehouse Management System (WMS) mobile app allows for accurate, up-to-date warehouse management of stock and jobs. It was developed by ECI as a module to ECI’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, M1.

It is a key reason why manufacturers should consider M1 for their ERP software needs.

While ERP software will help you see both inventory and supply chain management data, that visibility is only as good as the data being input into the ERP—that’s where the WMS mobile app comes in.

During my career I’ve realised that lean manufacturing is critical for business success. You can be more efficient when you can make quick, responsive decisions, and most importantly when you base these decisions on reality and not guesses.

Using inventory warehouse management software previously involved a laptop with a scanner attached. To input the stock data you needed to scan the barcode and then manually input quantities into the attached laptop.

Too many data entry mistakes can be made if you’re relying on this method.

When the warehouse floor is busy, estimating is quicker, rather than physically walking the floor to accurately count.

With the WMS mobile app, you can scan the barcode and while standing in front of the stock you can input the quantity number without any need to walk back and forth to a laptop. 

The accurate data is then fed into the ERP, M1, and then you have at your fingertips the data analysis necessary to make decisions in real-time. With this method, you know when to order more raw materials, when to respond to market fluctuations that impact end-product cost, and when you need to shift things around in your operating schedules.

I find what Australia’s manufacturers are looking for in terms of supply chain efficiency is to reduce costs and increase automation and innovation.

We enable our existing customers to leverage technology through the WMS mobile app so they can simplify their warehouse management—they can run stocktake via the mobile device rather than using printed off sheets of paper or a scanner connected to a laptop.

A key component of manufacturing success is inventory control and managing stock.

Inaccurate stock counts have a flow on effect of a manufacturer needing to purchase more stock at last minute (usually at a higher price), needing to store excess stock (taking up space that could be used for higher needs stock), having to deliver a job late because of stock accessibility issues, or losing a job because delivery couldn’t be guaranteed.

The juggle and stress that those thoughts can play on a production manager is huge and so the consequences of that can be high staff turnover and instability in the business.

Accurate stock management allows you to keep the minimum stock needed to run the business without ever running out of raw stock needed to complete the jobs. This is all predicated on having accurate data and that requires accurate stock inventory and logistics handling.

The biggest benefit of the ECI WMS mobile app is its freedom.

WMS is not tied to a laptop—you can move from one warehouse to another. You can move offsite and still be able to scan and input accurate data.

There’s no need for increased steps or the increased time it can take to run back and forth to the laptop to input data.

This in turn streamlines warehouse operations by improving productivity and reducing errors with the convenience of the mobile app. This means, stock managers can access real-time inventory data, perform picking and packing tasks, manage stock levels on the go, and generally become more organised with warehouse operations.

Warehouse management is critical for a manufacturer’s success and longevity. With my technical engineering background, I recommend 4 key things to consider when looking at an inventory management system:

1. Paperless processes—increase data accuracy and remove as much opportunity for manual data error as possible by leveraging machine intelligence.

2. Enhance labour productivity—streamline all your picking, packing, shipping and stocktaking processes with WMS mobile app and M1 ERP.

3. Improve order fulfillment—track and react in real-time to orders. Have visibility from order receipt to stock delivery and increase your customer satisfaction.

4. Reduce errors and discrepancies—automated verification and handling will minimise manual errors.

Managing stock in manufacturing is critical and key to this is visibility.

There are a number of incidences, such as COVID-19, and the Ever Given ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal and held up nearly $60 billion of trade, that had huge impacts on manufacturers and their ability to manage their stock.

Both highlighted the need for stock level visibility in real time, with manufacturers needing to ask themselves, ‘do I need to source stock from somewhere else, how much and what are my deadlines?’

In my experience, I’ve found that you need to make decisions quickly and that needs to be based on reliable data.

As the saying goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out’—if you base your analysis on faulty data then you don’t have accurate stock levels, meaning you don’t have an accurate snapshot of your current position and you’ll lose your faith in whatever ERP you are using.

Even worse, if you walk the warehouse floor and see stock on the shelves, you might use that stock that may have already been promised to another job, and you never want to do that.

The WMS mobile app eliminates this issue, and when used with M1 it can give you accurate visibility every moment of the working day.

If you are interested in minimising manual errors in your warehouse management and you want to align the human element with best practice within an ERP software, then using the WMS mobile app will make it easier to achieve.

For more information on WMS contact ECI Solutions.