Thoughts and Views : De-centralized Warehouse Management

Posted by Kaushik Choudhury in ERP SCM Logistics Execution on Dec 10, 2011 7:30:
03 AM
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Sometime back I worked in an assignment which involved Decentralised Warehouse M
anagement (DWMS) . That was the first time I worked in decentralised warehouse
management scenario and I thought it will be nice to pen down my experience an
d personal perspective on DWMS.
My first goal was to understand the business cases which made the project team c
hoose Decentralised Warehouse management over Centralised warehouse management c
oncept. On exploration , I came to the conclusion that there are two main reason
s which influenced to take the decision for DWMS viz. continuous delivery from
the warehouses demand max availability and bare minimum downtime of the warehou
se management solution, and quick system response time. The other points which
favours DWMS is it s ability to work with Multiple ERP SAP/Non SAP systems .This m
akes it feasible to use the same server/application as warehouse management sol
ution across organization irrespective of the Inventory Management/manufacturing
execution system implemented in different sites.
The above mentioned flexibility with DWS system comes with some constraint like
distributed delivery cannot be deleted directly in ECC system , once the deliver
y is post goods issued (PGI) from DWS system then it cannot be reversed or cance
lled etc. Even if stock inconsistency exists between the IM and WM level due t
o any reason , as long as stock is available in WM level PGI can be done succes
sfully from DWMS system and the delivery PGI confirmation Idoc to reconcile the
stock in IM level will fail with stock deficit error. This further jeopardizes
the stock accounting within the supply chain and complicates the entire stock t
racebality.
I believe DWMS offers tremendous flexibility and is the right strategy solution
for business where high delivery volume demands round the clock availability of
WMS system with fast system response time .But I feel it is more appropriate f
or matured business users who have worked on centralised warehouse management sy
stems before and understand the concept of stock at Inventory and wareshouse ma
nagement level .
It was the first time I worked in DWMS landscape and the thoughts shared above a
re purely my personal views based on the understanding developed during the assi
gnment .
I invite all readers to share your views, pros/cons of DWMS and suggest the scen
arios where DWMS is most recommended .
395 Views Topics: supply_chain_management, enterprise_resource_planning
Average User Rating(2 ratings)
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Comments
2 Comments
Deepak Giridhar Joshi
Deepak Giridhar Joshi Sep 23, 2012 6:55 AM
one of the very few DWMS reviews out there. Thanks for taking the time to pen th
is down.
Like (1)
vivek gaurav
vivek gaurav Jul 2, 2015 2:40 PM
good one.. thanks for sharing