Supply Chain Management Review: WES — it’s for warehouse automation and more

From Supply Chain Management Review:

WES software does indeed make many decisions on the fly, but a need for business intelligence on factors like operational performance and asset health still exists, says Sean Brown, director of software and controls with Materials Handling Systems (MHS), a provider of warehouse automation solutions, including WES.

“I don’t think the principle fundamentals with WES have gone away, but what is being added to it is tying in more business intelligence,” says Brown. “By visually demonstrating the trends that are happening, managers can utilize those insights to improve planning and have better information at their fingertips.”

The core of a good WES, explains Brown, has always been its ability to balance material flow and sequence work though different zones that have different processing rates so orders can be consolidated together at pack out and shipped on time. This underlying capability can run automatically, he adds, but managers still want better dashboards and business intelligence for concerns including the throughput potential of a DC or multiple DCs and health of automation assets.

Continue Reading