eBooks

Page 4 PathGuide Technologies ● 22745 29 th Drive SE, Suite #150, Bothell, WA 98021 ● www.pathguide.com ● clientservices@pathguide.com About PathGuide Technologies PathGuide Technologies, Inc., a privately held company founded in 1989, is a leading provider of warehouse management solu ons for industrial & retail distributors across North America. PathGuide's so ware and services help suppliers increase produc vity and order accuracy, improve customer service and lower labor costs, ul mately driving greater profitability. Click here to learn how distributors of all sizes can benefit from improved warehouse management. When working with a new client, our implementation team conducts a full-day discovery session. We spend time with all of the relevant operations managers and end-users to learn about the business, the current work flow and their expectations for improvement. This is followed by a detailed walk through of the warehouse to gain a baseline understanding of how the company ships orders and manages other functions. Insight to a client's operations is vital as plans for the WMS rollout come together. Most customers are fully live within six months of deciding to implement a WMS solution. In fact, many are up and running within only three or four months, while more complex implementations may take up to eight months to become completely operational. If we look at the average deployment, roughly 90 percent of the work falls within standard parameters and can be accomplished relatively easily. It still takes a lot of work, but it's not a case of reinventing the wheel. The last 10 percent is the piece that can be the most difficult and time-consuming, because this is where specific configuration issues and requirements for system customization come into play. Final Thoughts Any company considering the adoption of a WMS needs to fully understand the changes that the business will face. Abandoning trusted, ingrained practices is not a process to be taken lightly, as it will have a profound impact on the business from the ground up. When managed poorly, this process will be costly and disruptive without providing the desired functionality, usability or efficiency gains. The flip side of that is a successful WMS deployment helps the warehouse improve accuracy and many other important metrics. To succeed, the burden is on the customer to find a consistently reliable and flexible vendor with the expertise and willingness to support the process from the beginning. Speaking from years of experience, the more effort invested upfront into selecting a bullet-proof WMS vendor, the better the short- and long-term results.

• Cover