All storage facilities have developed procedures to handle
their operations efficiently. Many of them opt for warehouse control system. This option is becoming more and more popular. But, is it
just a trend, or maybe it really has an edge over the competition? We will
discuss that in this article “ read on to learn more!
What is a warehouse control system?
While the name warehouse control system is very similar to
warehouse management system, these are two different things. The former is a
type of software designed to overlook and handle automation in your storing
facility. It is used for controlling the flow, processes and routing. The
latter is a type of programs used for organizing your warehouse, managing your
labor and slotting “ the non-automatic and automatic aspects of your
facility.
These two concepts might also be mistaken with warehouse
execution system. WES is especially tricky, since it is in between the WMS and
WCS “ it covers some aspects that the WMS does not do as well as some
maintained by the warehouse control system.
Is warehouse control system useful?
This depends on the warehouse you are running. The more
automated processes you have, the more you should focus on implementing such a
solution. With a warehouse management system, we can track and monitor manual
processes in the warehouse.
In some cases, it might be worth to implement both WMS and
WCS “ if you run a big warehouse which combines automation with manual work,
using simply one of these solutions might not be enough. You might also
consider using the WES, but bear in mind “it covers tasks done by the warehouse
management and control systems, so adding it as the third option is usually
pointless.
So, is warehouse control system just a trend, or is it really a must?
Nowadays, everything is driven towards automation. As such,
it is crucial to implement solutions that can cope and control all the
automatic processes. And warehouse control system is one of them.
It is impossible to imagine fully manual warehouses. This
would be inefficient, expensive and more dangerous for the workers. As such,
most big fish in the industry switch to automatic solutions. This trend is
reflected in the use of the warehouse control systems. But is using them a
trend itself? No. It's an answer to the technological drift in the industry.
Therefore, it is slowly becoming a must.
Conclusions
Warehouse control systems are used to control all the automated
processes in storage facilities. They are useful in all the facilities that
strongly exercise the use of new technologies, and drift away from manual
labor. And, since this is the course of the whole industry, using warehouse
control systems is not a trend “ it is following the development of the whole
industry.
