How NetSuite Warehouse Management System Transforms Your Business
Companies that are rapidly expanding and scaling operations to the next level have traditionally two options for a warehouse management system (WMS) that is: limited functionality designed for low-complexity operations or solutions used by the world’s largest corporations that require intensive multi-year projects and massive budgets.NetSuite operates with the help of business modules. To understand how a NetSuite WMS integration might fit into the scenario, you should first grasp what these business modules are and how they can benefit your business’s operations.
NetSuite Warehouse Management System Overview:
The NetSuite Warehouse Management System (WMS) optimizes day-to-day warehouse operations using industry-leading practices such as mobile RF barcode scanning, specified put away and picking strategies, job management, return authorization receipts, and cycle count plans. With hundreds, if not thousands, of SKUs to manage, typically across numerous sites, warehouse management can quickly become a manual, chaotic, and inefficient operation if you rely on spreadsheets – or worse, pen and paper. NetSuite WMS removes manual operations, allowing you to reduce handling costs, manage more efficient warehouses, and reliably fulfil client requirements.Basics of ERP/WMS Integration
ERP software, such as NetSuite, is designed to integrate activities throughout your whole firm. From accounting to finance, sales to marketing, and everything in between, resource planning software is designed to align all of your company’s important operations in pursuit of its primary objectives. ERP functions are wide and far-reaching.WMS software is created with a specific function in mind. It is designed to automate and handle all important logistical processes in your warehouse, such as inventory management, shipping, pick and pack, and record keeping. It is a hyper-focused solution with a clear goal.
However, integrating the two helps to ensure business continuity and parity between your company and its third-party logistics partners.
Reason to Integrate Your WMS with NetSuite:
ERP WMS integration connects ERP to your warehouse management system. NetSuite WMS integrations enable you to leverage WMS’s useful features in tandem, so increasing your productivity to its maximum potential. You gain uniform access to information from all of these platforms, in real time.A NetSuite WMS integration is the ultimate approach to improve the efficiency of all the critical day-to-day duties you’ve been tasked with mastering along the road. It puts collaboration at the heart of your operations, ensuring that your efforts are distributed fairly across all elements of your business. When ERP integrates with warehouse management software, it becomes much more valuable and establishes itself as an essential component of your business operations.
NetSuite Warehouse Management Benefits:
Here are the benefits of integrating a high-value ERP like NetSuite with a well-built and adaptive WMS:- Streamlined Data Flow:
Employing an ERP/WMS integration, such as NetSuite, offers a single point of truth, reducing costs and time associated with integrating multiple solutions. NetSuite seamlessly unifies various modules, providing control over accounting, sales, marketing, and procurement. However, outsourced partners remain separate. Integrating ERP with vendors’ WMS ensures changes in one system reflect in the other, facilitating smooth operations and information exchange. NetSuite’s “save search” feature further enhances data translation between systems, fostering efficiency and accuracy. - Real-Time Data Access and Reporting:
With automation, IoT, and AI, logistics now thrives on precision rather than guesswork, improving supply and inventory management accuracy. Forbes reports that over half of logistics leaders utilize big data analytics and AI for enhanced efficiency. Integrating NetSuite with your logistics provider enables real-time data access, including inventory levels, shipping details, SKU trends, and fulfilment metrics. This integration eliminates reliance on predictive methods and breaks down data silos, as evidenced by Forbes, leading to smoother operations. - Enhanced Awareness and Control of Your Operations:
Integrating your NetSuite ERP with your vendor’s warehousing system goes beyond real-time data; it provides actionable insights. Imagine your vendor’s WMS as a traffic control system guiding inventory, while ERP acts as an urban planner analyzing data to optimize operations. Through integration, your NetSuite dashboard provides detailed metrics on inventory, orders, SKUs, and procurement planning. This enables executives to extract vital financial information such as sell points, margins, and costs from fulfilment operations. - Adaptability Via Third-Party Integrations:
Enhance operational efficiency by integrating two systems to streamline critical tasks. ERP manages the big picture, while WMS focuses on specifics, offering heightened adaptability through integration. A reliable 3PL logistics partner can further optimize operations by suggesting third-party APIs for seamless communication between your ERP and various systems. - Financial Efficiency:
Both ERP and WMS prioritize cost savings, each in its unique manner. Automation minimizes errors, and software solutions expedite order fulfillment without sacrificing precision. With these systems operating together, cost savings escalate significantly. By ensuring accuracy and reducing waste and inventory shrinkage, the synergy of ERP and WMS spans the entire enterprise, yielding rapid cost reductions.
NetSuite WMS Features:
- Order Fulfillment:
Streamline order fulfillment operations with wave release and intelligent pick-and-pack strategies for both single and multi-order picking, ensuring speedy and accurate order processing. - Mobile Warehouse Management:
Empower users with the NetSuite WMS mobile application to conduct daily tasks like receiving, put away, picking, and packing directly from their mobile devices. Enhance efficiency, reduce human error, and provide real-time data visibility. - Inbound Logistics:
Efficiently manage inbound logistics with mobile receiving and predefined put away strategies. Ensure accurate item reception, capture relevant data, and optimize warehouse space usage during storage. - Cycle Counting:
Optimize inventory management with NetSuite Smart Count, an automated inventory cycle counting solution. Improve efficiency and accuracy by automating inventory counts without halting transactions throughout the location. Smart Count tracks item transactions during counting, alerts counters of any activity, and allows administrators to set preferences for handling on-hand quantity changes during the count process. - Bin Management:
Utilize robust bin management functionality in NetSuite WMS to organize inventory effectively. Even locations without bins, such as retail stores, can benefit from mobile picking efficiency without bin management overhead. Conduct order processing and inventory management tasks, define stock locations, and view assigned stock locations from a mobile device.
How NetSuite Warehouse Management Solves Challenges:
- Improving Item Visibility in the Warehouse:
Gain real-time insight into item quantities and statuses by bin location as goods enter, move within, and exit the warehouse. - Minimizing Data Input Errors:
Utilize mobile devices to receive orders and input item characteristics accurately at the time of receipt. - Optimizing Warehouse Space Utilization:
Enhance warehouse layout by prioritizing fast-moving products near fulfillment centers and grouping similar items together. - Streamlining Order Picking Processes:
Implement wave release and multi-order picking strategies to efficiently group and fulfill like orders in a single pass through the warehouse. - Ensuring Accuracy in Order Picking:
Enhance order picking accuracy by employing well-designed mobile device workflows to guide users through a step-by-step picking process for each order.
The level of business automation worldwide will only expand in the coming years. With the introduction of the Amazon fulfilment model, customers have learned to expect more from your logistics. As the future becomes more apparent integrating your ERP with your vendor’s WMS will no longer be an option; it will be required in order to maintain business parity moving forward.
