If your 3PL still uses a traditional warehouse management system, you could spend less on logistics.
Are you thinking it might be time to improve your warehouse and distribution game? Curious about various warehouse management systems (WMS) and wondering which one is right for you?
A tier 1 warehouse management system is a software application that provides advanced functionality and capabilities to manage complex warehouse operations for large and sophisticated organizations.
A WMS is typically characterized by its ability to handle high volumes of inventory, orders, and transactions in real-time. It provides a wide range of features for inventory tracking, receiving and shipping, order processing, picking, packing, and shipping, as well as labor management, slotting optimization, and automated material handling integration.
These are critical tools if your business is a large-scale operation that integrates logistics with other enterprise systems, such as ERP, TMS, and CRM to provide end-to-end visibility into multiple warehouses and distribution centers.
But for many small and medium businesses, a full-blown WMS can be too much of a good thing.
What if we don't need all that WMS functionality?
In a traditional 3PL warehouse model, each customer typically uses a unique WMS instance to manage their inventory and order fulfillment operations, and their dedicated software application and database are maintained separately from those of other customers.
From Cura's perspective, implementing separate WMS instances for every customer can be expensive. In addition to initial set-up costs, there are ongoing maintenance and support costs that vary widely depending on the complexity of supply chain operations, warehouse size, and the number of users who need to access the system. Moreover, managing all those separate instances can lead to siloed information, manual data entry, inefficiencies and errors - a customer experience no one wants.
A separate WMS instance can also be costly from the perspective of our customers. You'll need to invest in your own software licenses and hardware, as well as IT resources to maintain and support your dedicated system to make sure everything works smoothly.
Shared warehouse management is a better solution for many companies
Overall, the traditional approach to 3PL warehousing systems can be burdensome and inefficient for everyone involved. Fortunately, now we have cloud-based distributed software alternatives that come with all the benefits of a full-feature WMS, and none of the up-front investment.
Known as "warehousing-as-a-service" (WaaS), these shared applications are a more cost-effective and streamlined approach to logistics that can boost operational efficiency for any size business.
A shared WMS provides every customer with real-time visibility into inventory levels, order status, and shipping information, without the need for separate software instances. And it allows us to optimize our warehouse operations to better manage order volumes and labor resources, which improves accuracy and reduces both cost and order processing times.
In short, WaaS means we can offer our customers a better, more affordable user experience, and they can make more informed data-driven decisions about their logistics operations.
About Cura Group
The experience of a 3PL customer making the switch from a separate warehouse management system instance to a WaaS solution can be transformative.
Cura customers will no longer have to maintain their own WMS instance. Instead, they can access a shared WMS that we will manage and maintain for them so they can save money and focus on other aspects of their supply chain.
Cura Group is a full-service 3PL partner with a flexible, "build, operate, manage" approach to regional warehouse and distribution facilities. To find out more about our fully customizable WaaS solutions, contact us for a one-on-one conversation about your specific logistics needs.
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