Long gone are the days when organizations have to implement a stand-alone Warehouse Management System (WMS) application to support the day-to-day operations in a warehouse. The latest release of Microsoft Dynamics AX revolutionizes the efficient movement of materials within a warehouse through an incorporated WMS as a standard built-in feature.
What can WMS do for you? The WMS module in Dynamics AX boosts your competitive advantage by optimizing staff requirements for peak periods and reducing labor costs by redefining warehouse layout, and improving visibility into inventory in real time
Receiving and Put-away
Receiving and put-away are the first steps of most manufacturing firm’s materials management strategy. Whether receiving items from the dock, the shop floor or quality control, the WMS in Dynamics AX helps firms to put inventory away efficiently, while maximizing warehouse space by automatically identifying optimal storage locations for items based on the characteristics and warehouse zones. Some of the key benefits for inbound and put-away are:
Placement and storage: No more searching or losing track of materials. We’ve seen situations where only a person or a group of people are receiving, as the knowledge gatekeepers for where items are stored. It’s like one person in your house knowing where you store groceries, which can be an issue in a home, let alone in a manufacturing warehouse. Through WMS, you can designate item locations on five different levels of specificity: warehouse, aisle, rack, shelf, and bin while further defining each location based on parameters such as space and pallet type. If some items need special considerations, such as temperature requirements or the rate of turnover, then you can divide the warehouse into zones in order to accommodate these needs.
Arrival journals: Through the WMS, you can further manage your inventory by reserving items for customers, receiving advance shipping notifications on incoming product, and seeing your incoming items in inventory as soon as they reach your warehouse. Arrival journals allow you to recreate a complete history of actions and item identifiers by using an audit trail. Through the option of either manual or automatic suggestions of put-away locations, put-away can be managed through use of pallet transport.
Arrival journals and placement and storage are just a couple of benefits for putting away and inbound, you can read more about more benefits that WMS has for put-away and inbound here.
Picking and Pulling Materials for Jobs
Dynamics AX WMS provides direction to pick materials in the most efficient and productive way. By allocating storage space based on priority of picking locations, you can make better use of warehouse space. Additionally, you can define shipments, control picking routes, choose your order size, and pick multiple orders simultaneously to better manage loads and improve the efficiency of the picking process. Below are a couple of key features from WMS that benefit your picking and pulling strategy:
Placement and storage: The WMS accelerates pulling for jobs to keep production flowing by providing direction on how to pick in the most efficient and productive way. This is because the module allows you to allocate storage space based on priority of picking locations first while buffering locations. Then, picking routes can be determined based on zones and the height of location. You can manage picking for several orders at once to better manage pallet loads and increase warehouse efficiency.
Attributes: When inputting an item into your system, there is no need for a separate part number for color and size. Items can have one part number and you can further define color and size based on attributes. This is important for picking because in WMS, if you are out of a part for a job, the attributes feature can suggest a substitution of a different color or material, based on pre-defined substitutions that you determined will work just as well as your original selection. This allows your picking to continue and keeps production flowing.
To read more about how WMS aids picking and pulling materials for jobs, click here.
Distribution and Outbound
A streamlined distribution and outbound process ensures delivery of amazing customer experiences. Well, on that parameter, Dynamics AX WMS scores high.
Shipments with output orders: You can easily specify a shipment as a sales or customer order shipment. You are also able to include shipments for multiple orders per customer. If you want to notify the receiver with an advanced shipping noticed so they are aware that their order will be arriving earlier than expected, that can be setup as well. Do you move items in between warehouses? There’s help with that as well; you can use transfers when moving items between warehouses to improve efficiency by using lead time, item tracking, and bills of lading.
Shelf life and obsolescence: You are better able to identify which products are obsolete for clearance and sale items through warehouse management by being able to identify these items with a pre-determined obsolescence date.
To read more about distribution and outbound in the WMS module, click here.
Optimize Efficiency and Accuracy
This is just an introduction to how Microsoft Dynamics AX can be used for picking and pulling materials for jobs and distributing them through WMS. As it is used, the advantages will become clearer. The robustness of WMS provides valuable insight into the warehouse management process and enables you to optimize the efficiency and accuracy of your process. Dynamics AX WMS is designed to help streamline your manufacturing process, providing a competitive advantage, and enabling you to increase business process efficiency and reduce operational costs.
by Indusa