Adaptive Software - The Wave of The WMS Future?

Walk into any warehouse operation, ask the person in charge how they like their WMS? Almost immediately they will complain about what it doesn’t do. They may like it. They may feel, overall, it works well. But when given the opportunity to critique the system, they will undoubtedly focus on the things that make their lives a bit more difficult; that make their operation a bit less efficient. Every warehouse manager, no matter how big or how small the operation, has “THE LIST” of what will make their WMS better. How to keep up with the changing environment?

Every company using a WMS realizes that at some point after implementation their system can’t keep up with rapidly changing business requirements. Even after just a short time, the operation may find itself becoming constrained by what the software can’t support. Requests for help from IT can take too long; there isn’t an IT organization in the world that isn’t overallocated. Requests to the vendor are answered with pricing estimates that are too rich or take too long anyway. So, the operation is forced to continue to make due, knowing well that they could be running better and less expensively.

In spite of the fact that WMS applications over the last decade have become far richer in features and functions and in spite of the fact that they are much more configurable, all implementations continue to require software enhancements. In some cases, extensive enhancements are required. The amount and extent will vary, based on the vendor and on the ability or willingness of the customer to adapt their processes to the software.