At the turn of the century, the WMS market took a major setback along with the entire software technology market.  Quite simply, companies were burned out from excessive information technology spending resulting from the Y2K crisis.  The result was a period of unprecedented market consolidation as cash-starved companies sold out and exited the market.  During this period, WMS market leaders took advantage of the market instability by growing through acquisition. When the dust had settled, roughly 25 WMS companies had survived the drought and were poised to compete for the next wave of WMS market growth as companies seek to replace aging software applications.

Today the market has emerged to the point where the traditional warehouse management system has become an important point solution within an enterprise-wide suite of supply chain planning and execution applications.  Over the years, some WMS market leaders have expanded the scope of their product offering to include a diverse range of applications such as: demand planning; network order management; yard management; inbound and outbound transportation optimization; labor management; supply chain visibility; event management; and slotting; amongst others.  These applications have enabled the traditional WMS supplier to move beyond the four walls of the warehouse into the global supply chain arena.  The market has embraced these enterprise supply chain solutions as a key enabler to gaining more control over the entire supply chain cost structure.

The WMS market may be less confusing today than it was ten years ago but the basic challenges of selecting and implementing the right application for your business have remained the same.  New technologies such as service oriented architecture (SOA) have emerged to significantly improve the flexibility of these solutions and a promising new generation of WMS solutions is now emerging as a result.  As importantly, the radio frequency handheld unit is no longer the only tool available for the warehouse operator to capture real time data within the distribution center.  Voice recognition technology, pick to light, and other forms of automation have developed and matured whereby exciting levels of quality and productivity are being achieved in distribution operations that previously were unimaginable.

MWPVL International has actively participated in the WMS Industry since its origins and we continue to work with suppliers, customers and business partners to provide trusted experience in helping companies with the following types of questions:  

• Which WMS software application is best suited for our company, preferred computing platform and financial budget?
• Should we deploy the warehouse system provided by our ERP system or should we be considering a best of breed WMS application?
• What is the business case for investing in a WMS application?  What is the total capital investment requirements including internal and external resources and what financial benefits can we realistically expect to obtain from a new system?
• What are the main differences between the solutions available within the existing market place and which vendors present the match to our company’s requirements?
• Is there a structured process that we should follow when selecting a WMS application to ensure that we have done the appropriate due diligence to protect our company’s interests?

MWPVL International Inc. provides strictly unbiased advice and trusted experience in helping companies through the following efforts: 

• Developing the business case and financial justification for a WMS application
• WMS requirements definition and RFP Development
• Development of structured software demonstration scripts
• Vendor/solution evaluation and selection
• Software negotiation and acquisition
• Developing the project budget, plan, schedule, internal and external resource requirements for deployment
• Project Management
• Software implementation
• On-going support