Completed WMS projects
International provider of intra-logistic
Consulting in the the scope of a strategical positioning in the area of warehouse IT
Branch
- Mechanical and plant engineering industry
The team warehouse logistics was asked by an international provider of intra-logistic solutions to analyse its product portefolio and act as strategical consultant regarding the warehouse IT. The global player, with a staff of several thousands, is a system integrator offering a broad range of services from single products up to finished solutions and various other services.
Target
Currently, the company studies its range of WMS software products. During this project the team warehouse logistics should offer support during the design of a product portefolio to ensure the company’s competitiveness with regard to warehouse management. The main challenge was to assess the product range strategically and professionally. Furthermore, it had to be checked how the purchase of third-party software would affect the company’s strategical warehouse management performance.
Initial situation
The current situation was assessed by means of the strong point / weak point analysis where the WMS currently used by the company was compared with the systems on the market. This analysis was based on the International Market Survey Warehouse Management Systems. In a first step the funtions of the WMS were analyses according to the 3,000 single aspects of the questionnaire.
Requirements profile
After the company’s target branches had been defined a requirements profile for the warehouse management was specified based on the questionnaire of the International Market Survey WMS for an online WMS selection. For this purpose, all relevant aspects of the questionnaire were priorised.
Strong point/weak point analysis
The WMS functions recorded in the first step were compared with WMS selected from the database of the International Market Survey WMS using the requirements profile. Based on the results the single function areas of the WMS could be compared with those of “marketable” WMS.
In a further step, it was checked which synergies could be achieved by establishing a strategical partnership with other WMS providers. For this purpose, Fraunhofer IML added the functions of other WMS to the WMS functions stored in the databasea Based on another analysis of the strong and weak points of the modified WMS the benefits of a partnership could be evaluated.
Results
The results of the consulting by the team warehouse logistics help the company to make a decision: Keep or modify the present portefolio of WMS products.
