Warehouse Management System

Warehouse Management Systems

Microsoft Dynamics–Navision ® Warehouse Management Systems saves your business time and money through efficient warehouse processes.

Key Benefits:

Reduces your warehouse costs and improves your customer service by speeding up the order handling process.
Streamlines your warehouse operations by providing transparent and accurate inventory data.
Enables you to optimize your warehouse layout and space utilization.

How much profit do inefficient warehouse practices subtract from your bottom line? Inaccurate inventory data, slow order handling processes, incorrect orders and customer dissatisfaction are all expensive consequences of an inefficient warehouse management system.

With Microsoft Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), your warehouse management operations are fully integrated with the rest of your business. This means your sales, purchase, and warehouse departments are able to share and process information simultaneously. It also means you achieve better control over the movement and storage of materials within your warehouse, so you maximize the efficiency of your receipt and shipment of goods, optimize warehouse space utilization, and know at all times exactly where your goods are stored.

Speed Up Your Order Handling Process

In order to keep your company’s distribution costs to a minimum and maximize your customers’ satisfaction, it is essential to have a fast order handling process. Microsoft WMS includes advanced setup and inventory processing functionality to optimize your warehouse efficiency.

Directed put-away and picking processes allow fast handling and shipping of goods. When you want to pick an item, Microsoft WMS directs you to its exact location. And when you receive items to be put away, Microsoft WMS directs you to a suitable bin. Your warehouse workforce saves time, and the accuracy and consistency of your picking and putting away processes are enhanced because they are controlled and directed by Microsoft WMS.

This means new employees or temporary staff can be effective from day one, because the program directs them to the right zone and bin in the warehouse when they need to pick or put away items. And instead of storing items in the warehouse unnecessarily and slowing down your order handling processes, Microsoft WMS will suggest the option of cross-docking. This allows you to expedite orders when required, resulting in reduced handling and happier customers. You can also use predefined filters to quickly find the items that you’re looking for.

Microsoft WMS is highly flexible, so you can match the functionality of the program to your changing warehouse management needs. You have many options for organizing your daily shipment of outbound orders. For example, you can allocate all your orders for a particular destination on the one shipment order. Microsoft WMS enables you to keep track of outgoing deliveries, provides you with the opportunity to pick items to stage, allows partial shipments, and ensures complete shipment of the delivery, so you satisfy your customer’s varying demands.

Thanks to the availability of many warehouse shipment options, it’s easy to organize your outbound operations.

Ensure Transparent and Accurate Inventory Data

To achieve efficient and effective warehouse management processes, you not only face the challenge of maintaining accurate inventory data but also of providing transparency of this data throughout your organization. For this to occur, all departments within your organization need to have access to the same set of accurate inventory data. Transparent and accurate inventory data allows employees in your sales, purchasing, and warehouse departments to work from the same information, thereby ensuring greater customer satisfaction, a more efficient order handling process, and keeping your warehouse management costs to a minimum.

With Microsoft WMS, sales staff can provide accurate information to customers about stock availability. Warehouse staff can find items quickly and easily. Purchasing staff have access to real-time, accurate data so they can maintain optimum stock levels and minimize your stock-holding costs.

With Microsoft WMS, your warehouse processes become automated and directed, which results in accurate and reliable inventory data. The availability and location of items is readily visible to all warehouse employees. It is also possible for Microsoft WMS to keep track of the quantity of items within each bin. Cycle counting allows you to perform counting of physical inventory in an efficient way, with little disruption to your warehouse operations.

Another feature of Microsoft WMS that gives flexibility in inventory handling, is bin blocking, which allows the contents of a bin to be temporarily blocked for warehouse movements. This is an attractive option if you have some inventory that is defective or under quality control. Microsoft WMS also supports internal put aways and picks, so you can manage your company’s internal inventory requirements. This means that you can take items from or place items in inventory without selling or purchasing them.

Microsoft WMS includes an automated data capture system (ADCS) to provide an accurate and efficient means for managing inventory. ADCS enables you to collect and use accurate, real-time inventory data using radio frequency technology. The quantity, placement, serial number, bin number, and zone number are recorded by the program, so if you want to find a specific item, the program will tell you exactly where it is. In this way, you avoid the problems that arise from inaccurate data, such as pickers being sent to the wrong location and being unable to track items.

Optimize Your Warehouse Layout and Space Utilization

Making optimal use of your warehouse space is essential to having an efficient and effective warehouse management system. Microsoft WMS gives you the flexibility to design your warehouse layout to best suit your requirements.

The Pick and Put Away worksheet is a tool incorporated in Microsoft WMS that makes it possible to optimize the way items are picked or put away. Microsoft WMS enables you to set up zones and bins in your warehouse and allocate rankings to them. In this way, you can ensure that certain zones or bins are picked before others and items are put away in a pre-defined order, because the program will suggest picking the items from the bins with the higher ranking first.

Numerous options are available to you for creating a pick.

To effectively manage your warehouse space, Microsoft WMS provides the ability to individually determine for each bin whether it is fixed or floating. For fixed bins, it is predefined which specific items are stocked in it, whereas floating bins can stock any item.

Items can be assigned a warehouse class, which defines how goods can be stored and ensures that your inventory is always stored under the appropriate conditions. For example, you may use a warehouse class of –20° C for goods that need to be stored in freezing conditions and a warehouse class of +5° C for goods that need to be kept in cold conditions.

Bin replenishment functionality is also provided in Microsoft WMS, ensuring that items are always in the optimal place for picking. The program will suggest replenishing higher-ranking bins with goods from lower-ranking bins, thereby significantly increasing the efficiency in your warehouse. The forward picking areas will always be filled, thereby avoiding wastage of time caused by inefficient picking routes. This gives you total control of your warehouse processes so that warehouse layout and space utilization is optimized and warehouse management costs are minimized.

Microsoft WMS provides all the functionality you need to run an efficient and cost-effective warehouse management system. Microsoft WMS lets you serve your customers better by reducing lead times and increasing the overall efficiency and accuracy of your receiving and distribution processes. And because Microsoft WMS is fully integrated with Navision, you don’t need to worry about integration issues. Your financials, manufacturing/distribution, as well as purchasing and sales order information are all included in the same solution, so you enjoy complete information accuracy and accessibility for your entire business. With Microsoft WMS, your warehouse will start adding profit to your bottom line instead of taking away from it.