What is a warehouse management system (WMS)? Functions and benefits

Warehouse management systems are used to help businesses monitor and control inventory more effectively. However, building a scientific, easy-to-use, and accurate warehouse management system requires a lot of time and effort from businesses. In this article, let's learn with 1C Vietnam the concepts, benefits and main features of the warehouse management system.

1. What is a warehouse management system?

Warehouse management system WMS (Warehouse Management System) is a system that helps track inventory levels, number of orders, sales and deliveries. The system allows strict management of all stages from input materials until creating finished products. With a WMS warehouse management system, businesses can optimize picking and shipping orders, verify replenishment, and handle inventory more accurately.

The goal of WMS warehouse management software is to create a paperless warehouse working environment. The process of picking and transporting goods is done automatically, helping to optimize the process in both time and labor.

2. Benefits of WMS warehouse management system

A good WMS warehouse management system will bring significant benefits to businesses in operating and managing goods in warehouses. Some outstanding benefits of warehouse management systems include:

2.1 Minimize operating costs

Warehouse is a bridge between departments such as production, sales, accounting,... so warehouse management activities need to be focused to ensure smoothness and efficiency. However, with a large number of employees and goods and many complex processes, businesses can face many challenges and difficulties if they still maintain traditional management methods.

With the WMS smart warehouse management system, businesses can cut down on manual processes, optimize the number of personnel and reduce costs related to loss or damage of goods. Thanks to the automatic management system, the flow of goods in the warehouse will always be guaranteed to be accurate, thereby making sales activities more effective.

2.2 Increase labor productivity

The WMS warehouse management system allows assigning specific tasks to each employee, so businesses can proactively forecast the number of workers needed for operations. Manual processes are also eliminated to optimize working time. For example, businesses can scan product codes instead of having to record information on paper. The system will automatically update data, helping to minimize confusion and errors.

2.3 Easily update inventory in real time

The WMS warehouse management system is also equipped with a feature that allows updating inventory numbers in real time. Sales and warehouse management departments can track data at the same time to carry out the sales process. This helps prevent importing too little goods, leading to insufficient supply, or importing too much, causing wasted inventory.

2.4 Increase security

Compared to manual recording methods or using Excel to store data, the WMS warehouse management system has better information security capabilities. Each employee is assigned a certain role and authority on the system, and cannot access important reports or data beyond their authority. This ensures data security, while limiting data leakage to the outside world, affecting competitive advantage.

3. Main features of the warehouse management system

The warehouse management system possesses many superior features to support tracking and controlling all warehouse activities more automatically, accurately and quickly. Here are some key features of WMS warehouse management software:

• Warehouse space management: The system scientifically allocates goods to each location in the warehouse or to each different warehouse.
• Inventory management: Allows businesses to easily track and update inventory anytime, anywhere, ensuring business operations are continuous and uninterrupted.
• Importing and exporting goods into the warehouse: Allows the use of QR code and barcode scanning technology during the process of importing and exporting goods. This feature saves time and reduces manual processes.
• Track orders: Update order information quickly to arrange and ship goods.
• Human resource management: Evaluate warehouse staff's performance through work processing stored on the system.
• Warehouse management: WMS warehouse management system allows managing multiple warehouses at the same time, helping to arrange goods and distribute each warehouse optimally.
• Reporting: The reporting system is updated in detail in real time, providing timely data for managers to make strategic decisions quickly and most effectively.

4. Solution 1C:Company Management automates flexible and effective warehouse management

1C:Company Management software is a technology solution with flexible features, helping businesses optimize operating processes and ensure convenience during use. 1C:Company Management has the ability to store all information on the same system, making the retrieval and management process easier.

Using 1C:Company Management can help connect all departments such as purchasing, sales, production, warehousing, finance,... on the same system. In particular, the software's warehouse management module provides necessary features for businesses including:

• Calculate cost of materials: Support for calculating cost of materials helps businesses make reports more quickly and accurately.
• Set inventory limits: Businesses can set maximum and minimum inventory levels to limit waste of goods as well as reduce the risk of supply shortages.
• Management of material information in the warehouse: The software allows full entry of data related to goods such as shipments, serial numbers, goods characteristics, etc. The software also allows the use of a variety of units. Calculated to suit many different types of goods.
• Prepare warehouse documents: Documents such as material transfer, import and export, warehouse slips,... are all digitized and stored scientifically.
• Periodic inventory, recording increases and decreases: Supports automatic inventory counting, recording the quantity of goods regularly periodically to accurately update the actual quantity compared to the books, thereby providing a solution. Timely handling of problems such as lack of goods, excess goods, etc.
• Separating warehouse transactions and financial transactions: Separating types of transactions helps managers easily control the amount of goods as well as the financial situation of the warehouse.

Thus, the warehouse management system plays an important role in helping businesses monitor and control warehouses more automatically and accurately, while saving costs, time as well as increasing labor productivity. For consulting support on warehouse management solutions suitable to your business needs, please contact 1C Vietnam today.