There's an alphabet soup of software systems for running warehouses — WES, WMS and WCS among them. Daniel Avram, senior director of advanced software with Savoye North America, helps us sort through them. 

A warehouse execution system (WES) handles order and inventory fulfillment, providing visibility of those critical functions, but only within the four walls of the facility, Avram says. A warehouse management system (WMS), by contrast, oversees the movement of inventory across a network of multiple distribution centers and supply chain nodes. “WES will never move into that realm,” he says, “but it will almost do everything else — the execution of equipment, visibility of order fulfillment, the ability to request replenishment, and real-time operations and orchestration within that building. 

A warehouse control system (WCS) is more of a traditional term, describing software that originally was responsible for interfacing with the physical material-handling equipment. It could communicate with sorters, scan containers and direct them to the proper location in the warehouse. “For the longest time, the equipment drove the software,” Avram says. “It wasn’t so much execution — it was more of a delegation from the WMS on what work to provide through simple missions.”

Over time, the WCS evolved into a WES. “Everybody wanted to jump on the bandwagon,” Avram says. Many vendors simply rebranded their WCS offerings. But integrators came to realize that they needed to build the newly named application “from the ground up.”

A modern-day WES operates through an “intricate level of feedback” from the equipment. It can identify areas within the warehouse that are currently “saturated,” set some inventory aside, and direct other items to areas with less traffic. “It pools work as opposed to being pushed,” Avram says.

Also of prime importance to modern warehouse systems are artificial intelligence and machine learning. While some WES providers make exaggerated claims about their use of that technology, AI, coupled with data analytics, has the ability to detect patterns that allow the system to run more effectively. It can also identify anomalies as well as early opportunities for preventive maintenance of equipment.