Within the four walls of a typical warehouse today reside a host of applications, each designed to manage a wide assortment of tasks. Perhaps the most commonly known among them is the warehouse management system (WMS), which has played a key role in running distribution facilities for decades. 

More recently, another application has entered the mix: the warehouse execution system (WES). Not to be confused with its closely related cousins — the WMS, the WCS (warehouse control system), or even the OMS (order management system) — the warehouse execution system was developed to help warehouses respond to an increasingly complex supply chain environment, something other systems haven’t fully been able to achieve on their own. This integrative, AI-enabled tool has the power to automate decisions, orchestrate operations between both humans and machines, adjust to constantly changing circumstances, and manage the overall operational flow of the warehouse.  

Seth Patin, chief executive officer of LogistiVIEW, a provider of warehouse execution software, believes the key differentiator between the WES and other warehouse management applications is its ability to make decisions in a deeper and more detailed way. “It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deliver efficiency and meet SLAs [service-level agreements] with all the massive disruption and cost increases that are constantly taking place,” he says. “Warehouse execution goes beyond the what to focus on the who, the when, the where, the why, and the how within a warehouse.” 

But what exactly has changed in the warehouse landscape to necessitate this new tool, and how can the WES not only respond to today’s most pressing challenges, but also prepare distributors for the future of warehouse operations? 

The Changing Warehouse Landscape 

While the WES may be new to some, the concept itself is at least a decade old. As more advanced machines were introduced to warehouses, it soon became clear that WMSs weren’t designed to control all the new and varying machinery. To respond to this need, automation vendors added a functionality to warehouse control systems (WCSs) to help connect people and machines in the warehouse. Eventually, what was originally an extension of the WCS became its own independent system, and in the early 2010s, the warehouse execution system was born. 

Nearly a decade later, warehouses are still undergoing rapid change, as the wider supply chain becomes even more complex. “It's all connected to the overall change in commerce, globally,” says Patin. “The more connected we are, the more product is moving from one place to another, and the smaller the unit of measure that we're trying to track — each of those different steps has to be optimized for the cost of transportation, labor and distribution, and raw materials.” 

In the warehouse itself, that complexity is immediately apparent in the sheer variability of processes required for each order. In the early days, warehouses would typically handle a few large orders for a limited number of products. Now, they’re often processing hundreds or thousands of orders for a variety of different SKUs, all within the same facility. “One item might be picked off a shelf into a box, while another product on that same order is being picked by a fork truck out of a rack on the other side of the warehouse,” says Patin. In short, today’s warehouses have to assemble significantly more puzzle pieces just to get orders out on time, in full, and with minimal cost to the customer.  

That’s where the WES comes in. According to Patin, a new crop of providers is recognizing the need for interconnectivity among multiple systems, including the physical machinery that the WCS controls, and the system of record managed by the WMS. 

The Role of AI in Warehouse Execution Systems 

The modern-day WES manages this complicated landscape with the help of artificial intelligence. But the AI used in warehouses isn’t exactly what most might imagine. “It's not necessarily ChatGPT,” says Patin. “It's not like you're talking to this agent or anything like that.” Instead, he says, AI’s role in warehouse management has more to do with analyzing data and guiding or automating decision-making. 

The WES has the power to collect and integrate massive amounts of data from the other applications within the warehouse, such as the WMS and WCS. All those pieces of information come together to paint a picture of what the warehouse looks like today: the work being performed, the roles of both machines and people, and the business goals that need to be met. AI can take all that information, and make decisions based on real-time conditions.  

Those conditions can change from season to season, as the warehouse responds to peaks and valleys in demand throughout a calendar year. But they can also change from moment to moment. 

“We all love predictability in the warehouse,” says Patin. “We all want to know when the shift is going to start, when it's going to end, and how many orders we're going to ship throughout the course of the day, And then three seconds later, something goes wrong, and we're left scrambling.” 

In the past, the elements of warehouse management tended to be more predictable. In today’s supply chain, by contrast, last-minute disruptions are the norm, and the ability to shift on a dime is a nonnegotiable asset. AI-powered warehouse execution software can recognize what's happening in the warehouse in real time, then recommend or even automatically execute the most appropriate response to the problem, so that the plan is constantly being adjusted to fit the needs of the moment. 

WES Adoption in Today’s Warehouses 

While new technologies can often take time to reach full adoption, the WES has seen a quicker acceptance curve than its predecessors. The reason for this, says Patin, might be that many companies are reaching the peak value that their WMSs can provide, and are seeking out new solutions to better manage their changing warehouse environments. “Many companies are asking themselves, ‘How can I use intelligent software to help me figure out all these complexities that I don’t have enough time or people to deal with?’”  

If anything is clear from the last decade of global commerce, it’s that change and complexity are inevitable in today’s supply chains. Every element of warehouse operations is getting more and more difficult to perfect, Patin says, and manual, siloed processes are no longer cutting it. At the same time, technology has never been more advanced. Those who embrace the need for an integrated approach, such as that provided by a modern-day warehouse execution system, are primed to succeed in today’s ever-changing, AI-driven world. 

Resource Link: LogistiVIEW, https://www.logistiview.com/