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Subscription based Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) can be a viable alternative to prohibitive up front investments for WMS software.

The Business Problem

Distribution managers are often faced with the increasing challenges of service demands, process, efficiency and accurate inventory management but have difficulty justifying the high costs of warehousing technology to their executives.

Generally when a business operation is not hampered visibly through sales, service levels, or loss expenses it makes justifying technology driven process improvements more difficult. Even though as a DC manager you know that the utilization of WMS capabilities can dramatically assist you in becoming more efficient and accurate within you facility.

It's a common dilemma:

Our polls of manufactures, logistics providers, and retailers with distribution facilities of less than 500,000 square feet indicate that over 75% of them manage their inventory and processes manually through the utilization of spreadsheets, paper recording templates and documents, or within the rudimentary facilities of their accounting systems.

Some facts are not on your side:

Tangible benefits from a WMS implementation commonly include labor reductions which are not often popular or realistic in the short term.

Decision timeframes for justification in smaller organization are often short (less than 6 months) and it is difficult to develop a concrete ROI in that timeframe.

In many cases the justifying factors considered in a WMS purchase are capabilities that are not utilized for several years after the purchase.
A typical cost for license and implementation for capable WMS software usually exceeds 250,000.00.
For companies with 5 – 20 users in their facility this figure is hard to justify. Yet these companies have just as much to gain relatively as a facility with 50 to 100 users or more.

An Alternative

Having the ability to implement the full capabilities of an advanced Warehouse Management System without making the leap to a significant up front investment overcome key hurdles to gaining buy in from senior management. This approach often leads to identifying and proving out the benefits that you know you can gain and will lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the enabling value of WMS capabilities.

Furthermore, with a maturing, affordable, and readily available high speed network access subscription based services can typically support 5 to 15 concurrent users per facility with the same transaction volume and response times seen with locally purchase WMS software licenses and can average less than 2500.00 per month. That is often a price point that even the most frugal organizations can stomach and makes much more sense for executives who may not be intimate with what is happening in the warehouse but would like to provide industry leading tools to his warehouse staff.

Subscription Solution Overview

Keys to an effective subscription based solution:

1

Ease of user configuration

2

Discrete and Open integration framework to host and accounting systems

3

Straightforward and easily understood processes

4

On line training facility

5

Rapid deployment

6

Secure and Reliable Infrastructure with 24X7 support

In Summary

If you are a distribution center manager and you know that you can gain efficiency in both services levels and overhead costs through the utilization of Warehouse Management System technology; a subscription bases offering may the best approach in justifying your needs. For more information visit AGI Worldwide on the web at http://www.agiworldwide.com/ or contact Tracy Perdue at 678-319-9443 x554.