How WMS software works

WMS (Warehouse Management System) systems are becoming more and more widespread in the logistics of different production sectors due to their ability to significantly reduce warehouse costs. Thanks to specific algorithms, in fact, a WMS software is able to manage a warehouse in an optimised way and thus achieve several concomitant objectives:

• automatically check the availability of raw materials in stock and then prepare in time the purchase orders;
• check in parallel the presence of the finished products necessary to prepare the shipment to a particular customer;
• optimise the warehouse space reducing unused spaces and avoiding overloads.

For anyone involved in business organisation, it is very clear that using intelligently a WMS software for warehouse management can significantly reduce logistics costs and improve the flow of the value chain in the company.

For example, with Logikamente’s WMS materialSUITE module you can always know the status of your company’s warehouse, organise purchase orders and shipments with great simplicity and be sure that all the available space is used in the best possible way!

In this way you can realise some of the principles on which lean thinking is based, the lean thinking that applies to all aspects of life and the organisation of economic activities. According to lean logistics, in fact, the time in which an object is stored in warehouse, whether it is a raw material or a finished product, is a waste of resources that must be reduced as much as possible, as well as the spaces used for storage must also be minimised. On the other hand, this reduction in time and space is just one of the goals that we can easily achieve using WMS software to manage our logistics.

Managing a warehouse with WMS in the food sector

If logistics management is fundamental in every company, however, we can say that it becomes crucial when we talk about the food industry and the food-beverage sector. In these fields, in fact, in addition to the management of the presence of a certain object in stock, it is also necessary to take into account the expiry dates, sometimes quite close, which must be respected for the health of the ingredients used.

When you receive a raw material in the food sector, in fact, you need not only report its presence in the warehouse stocks, but also record the time of arrival so as to be sure that it is used for production by the set expiry date.

The advantage of doing this with WMS software is obvious, don’t you think? Automatically, at the time of registration of the incoming goods, which can also be done with the use of barcodes or RFID tags, the system will also record the information on the expiration of the goods and will perform an automatic check at the time of picking for processing.

The labelling of finished products can be managed in the same way, obtaining directly from the system the necessary data, from the point of view of 4.0 Industry, which, when understood well, is a revolution much more concrete than is believed at first superficial glance.

The raw materials that arrive daily in a food sector also require different storage conditions, for example in cold storage or at room temperature, and the WMS module of our materialSUITE is able to take into account these variables and look for a suitable place for each arrival.

The experience with the Greci WMS and Logikamente

When we talk about the use of WMS for logistics management in food&beverage, we at Logikamente can also rely on some experiences we have gained in recent years with the collaboration with important companies in the sector.

For example, our collaboration with Greci, concerns in particular the WMS and logistics management in an optimised way. Greci is a company founded in Parma in 1923 that deals with food preserves of different types: condiments, ready meals of meat and fish, cured meats, fish preserves, prepared for cooking, desserts and much more.

For a WMS software like our module associated with materialSUITE we have to say that Greci is really an interesting challenge: a lot of raw materials of various types, with packaging dimensions, Extremely different times and ways of conservation must be managed at best optimising space to reduce costs.

The effectiveness of our WMS system and its ease of use have produced excellent results in Greci in terms of cost containment and improvement of the overall efficiency of the company.

If you want to deepen these topics you can contact us directly or visit us on May 24, 25 and 26 at the Parma Exhibition during SPS – The industrial automation exhibition 2022. It will be an opportunity to see us in person and talk about future projects and collaborations: follow our social networks and our website to stay updated on this important event!