The successful integration of Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) with other accounting, legacy and materials handling systems requires a focus across many fronts.
Software is a moving target and in many instances there is no ready at hand method but just hard work allied to tried and tested methodologies. Specific emphasis is also needed on being creative and disciplined to address the many variances that each and every integration presents.
Sometime integrations are simple and straightforward, such as in importing a CSV file with defined formats and fields. But often they are a lot harder, where interfaces must be written to allow the communication of the many actions and events that make up a dynamic WMS.
Integrations cry out for discipline and the need to put together a team of people with the mindsets to cover both the creative and discipline aspects of any project.
No matter how many resources are on a project, both areas must be represented in order for you to get the most robust and cost effective solution. As a buyer of WMS integration, you will need to ensure the vendor team you have chosen for the integration effort has both creativity and discipline.
Most importantly you must recognize that in many cases your IT team needs to contribute extensively in these areas too so that a through specification is defined, a robust testing and user acceptance methodology is in place as well as ensuring that the full impact / risks of any integration is understood by all parties to the project.
Watch out for the “new kid on the block” syndrome. You must check out how many integration customers does your WMS vendor have? It takes a number of years and many integration installations to experience a wide variety of customer preferences to get to a good place on the learning curve in the real life world of integration know –how.
Cost effective integrations is all about the “total cost of ownership”. The ill-conceived, or poorly executed interfaces can cause severe headaches in that these things can bleed hours of effort and cost every week across your whole operation.
Training and productivity measurement are also key to making integrations’ work. So users must be trained about the changes that will take place, and on the reality of system start-up problems.
Let users take ownership of the system, and be sure to put the time and effort into your project approach and make sure that it is air tight.
John O’ Malley
Principal Systems – Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) – Supply Chain Solutions
