• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile

  • CORONAVIRUS
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • REGIONS
    • Asia Pacific
    • Canada
    • China
    • Europe
    • Latin America
    • Middle East/Africa
    • North America
  • THINK TANK
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » The Next Breakthrough in Distribution Technology

The Next Breakthrough in Distribution Technology

Distribution Technology
February 6, 2019
Tim Johnson & Roger Counihan, SCB Contributors

The next big breakthrough in warehousing and distribution will not come from bots, drones or new hardware technologies. 

Instead, a new class of software is driving unprecedented levels of warehouse optimization — enabling more flexibility, extending the life of existing assets and acting as a platform for piloting new technologies.

Distribution operations are ripe for innovation. And new robotic technologies are announced frequently for functions like material movement and picking. But a new class of warehouse software is poised to drive even greater results than those promised by the much anticipated and talked about robots. If you haven’t already, it’s time to look at the benefits of this new software.

Distribution centers are highly complex, real-time operations comprising large capital investments like robotic pick engines, goods-to-person systems, unit sortation and automated guided vehicles. They leverage large, expensive software systems like enterprise resource planning (ERP) and warehouse management systems (WMS). And there are custom interfaces tying all of this together. 

When business requirements change, it’s a time-consuming and expensive process to modify or upgrade all these elements. So, while today’s business environment calls for flexibility and speed, companies are often hamstrung by their legacy distribution systems. Warehouse execution systems (WES) evolved to solve this problem. 

Driving Efficiency and Speed

Warehouse execution systems integrate all those elements together — coordinating their activities like a conductor leads an orchestra. In doing so, a WES can drive faster order-processing speed because it has real-time knowledge of the status of all the components in a DC — including material handling equipment, labor, in-storage and in-process inventory, and orders. It acts as an “efficiency engine” — balancing out the peaks and valleys of the integrated process and making the DC more productive, cost-efficient and streamlined. It’s real time in a way that ERP and WMS systems are not — optimizing on the fly. 

And by streamlining the entire process, a higher volume of orders can be processed using the existing hardware and software. Getting more out of the same assets means putting off an investment in new equipment, or postponing a lengthy and painful software upgrade. 

Another — often-overlooked — benefit of WES is its ability to simplify the piloting of new technologies. Companies need a less risky, inexpensive way to test new technologies to determine the value they bring to an operation. An open WES (one that is not tied to a particular vendor’s equipment) will have interfaces that let you “plug and play” much more easily than the current pain and expense associated with custom coding. A WES allows you to “try” new technologies more easily. And as more innovative technologies come to market, and come down in price, this ability to have a “pilot platform” to test new technologies becomes even more appealing. 

The Outlook

Things get really interesting when science-based algorithms and artificial intelligence are incorporated into warehouse execution systems, and they become predictive and preemptive. Soon these systems will anticipate bottlenecks and prevent them, by redeploying people, rescheduling order drops and rerouting orders around a problem before it occurs. And these systems will start anticipating and scheduling maintenance before it is needed. We’re not quite there, but we’re getting close. It’s time to get familiar with this powerful new software if you want to retain your competitive advantage.

Tim Johnson is senior director of systems, and Roger Counihan is vice president of sales at Fortna Inc.

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Warehousing Warehouse Management Systems
KEYWORDS warehouse execution systems Warehouse Management Systems Warehousing WES WMS
  • Related Articles

    The Cutting Edge of Software Technology in Distribution

    Voice Grows Up: The Next Evolution in the Warehouse

    The Next Tidal Wave of Distribution Automation Innovation

  • Related Directories

    SnapFulfil

Tim Johnson & Roger Counihan, SCB Contributors

The Next Breakthrough in Distribution Technology

More from this author

Wake up to Coronavirus Updates and the latest Supply Chain News!

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • Coronavirus-watch-Armada

    Virus Update: Biden Unveils National Strategy; Pfizer Says It’s Willing to Sell Vaccine to States

    Coronavirus
  • Car Industry

    A Year of Poor Planning Led to Carmakers’ Massive Chip Shortage

    Technology
  • Can Employers Require Employees to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Part 1

    Watch: Can Employers Require Employees to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Part 1

    Coronavirus
  • U.S. Vaccine Rollout Hindered by Faulty Coordination, Messaging

    WHO Fumes at Western Drugmakers As China Fills Vaccine Void

    Coronavirus
  • COVID-19 Vaccine

    Vaccine Disparities Raise Alarm as COVID-19 Variants Multiply

    Coronavirus

Digital Edition

Scb home issue 27

2020 Supply Chain Innovator of the Year

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • LSP Saves Customer $1.5 Million a Year With MPO Global Inbound Management

  • Auto Supplier Wows Key Client Using riskmethods Supply Chain Savvy

  • Integrating Shipping and Compliance Saves Conglomerate Millions

  • How a Consumer Goods Giant Upped Its On-Time Delivery Performance

  • LSP Wows Global Client, Quickly Advances to Become End-to-End Provider

Visit Our Sponsors

6 River Systems ArcBest Armada
aThingz BluJay Burris Logistics
DSC Logistics DCSA (Digital Container Shipping Association) DHL Resilience360
Genpact GEP Honeywell Intelligrated
Infor Logility Magnitude Software
MPO Old Dominion Oliver Wight
OpenSky Ports America Purolator
QAD Precision Red Classic Riskmethods
TGW Systems Transportation Insights Watson Land Company
Westfalia Technologies Workjam Yang Ming
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright © 2016 - 2018 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing