How 3PL Warehouses Can Win More Business With a WMS 

Third-party logistics (3PL) warehouses can help win more business using a warehouse management system (WMS). Your WMS offers a competitive edge by reducing costs and improving productivity, allowing your customers to create a better shopping experience. Here’s how. 

Faster Delivery 

You know all too well that consumers are demanding faster delivery. Whether clients have a single or multi-channel distribution system, technology helps facilitate faster movement throughout the supply chain. As a result, you improve your B2B experience and improve their B2C experience. 

Improve Inventory Management 

A WMS includes automated inventory management to reduce outdated and inefficient manual processes allowing your third-party logistics services to: 

• Improve accuracy across your end-to-end supply chain and all channels your clients use, including POS systems and e-commerce platforms 

• Integrate with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems 
• Provide accurate inventory forecasting to ensure clients always have enough inventory across their multi-channel/location system 
• Reduce storage and shipping costs 
• Track orders and inventory levels across all touchpoints and fulfillment centers in real-time 
• Dynamically replenish inventory to meet changes in demand 

• Empower clients to focus on their core business functions free of inventory headaches 

Provide Inventory and Order Visibility 

Visibility ensures customers always know: 

• Their daily order counts 

• Inventory levels 
• Replenishment timing 
• Top-selling products 
• Where each order is at any given time 

Your WMS answers essential questions, so your clients have the information they need with the click of a mouse. As a result, you provide instant order and inventory visibility 24/7. Your warehouse management system meets customer needs, outshining the competition and bolstering your business. 

Remain Flexible 

Adaptive warehouse operations are a must to meet the needs of today’s consumer. Your WMS allows you to pivot to meet changing needs and demands while supporting multiple workflows. You become more flexible, so you can also meet the needs of your own customers, providing services that are not considered part of the traditional 3PL offering, such as kitting.  

Improved warehouse management also optimizes warehouse space, allowing you to meet sudden increases in inventory as required. You also access important KPIs that allow you to report on throughput pace, so you understand when to increase or decrease worker count to optimize available labor. 

Improve Productivity 

Whether you manage every aspect of your client’s logistics needs, certain aspects, or specialty services, the end goal is to meet the end user’s expectations. This calls for streamlined, automated processes addressing the whole gamut of 3PL services. Your WMS improves productivity in several ways: 

Planning 

A WMS ensures the number of staff aligns with the daily workload. Using labor productivity data, managers plan the process accurately, reducing labor costs while optimizing productivity without overstaffing or overtime. 

Information 

Information is at the heart of planning and organization within the warehouse, providing insights that keep your third-party logistics warehouse forward-thinking. You can access real-time and historical order data to predict workload based on trends, customer types, and seasonal and cyclical patterns. You’ll also understand various characteristics based on e-commerce, retail, and wholesale. All of the information shared via your WMS allows you to constantly plan and improve processes on a daily basis. 

Communication 

Using a WMS streamlines multiple roles within your warehouse, ensuring everyone understands what tasks they must perform and how it impacts the process. Managers can set daily performance goals for each worker based on their role to improve productivity in each area throughout the shift. Collaboration across all levels, from sales to floor supervisors and pickers to shippers, creates efficient, automated workflows that become more flexible if trends or productivity rates change. 

Control 

Improving picking productivity calls for a documented, automated process designed to facilitate both typical orders as well as exceptions. This minimizes disruptions caused by unexpected events through controls that adapt to changing scenarios. For example, documented pick paths ensure pickers never wander the warehouse looking for items, while an overall process ensures pickers don’t make mistakes due to independent decisions made on the fly. 

Pickers know exactly what to do in most scenarios, such as not finding inventory in the expected pick position. Inventory movement becomes effective thanks to improved forward pick-position replenishment, reduction in missed picks, minimized lost inventory, etc. 

Measurement 

A WMS also provides a simplified measurement system, so managers understand when improvements are required based on unsatisfactory results. Information is captured, analyzed, and reported so managers can easily review and share. This motivates all team players, from managers to pickers, improving productivity through realized daily quotas. 

A WMS creates a unique value proposition focused on efficiency, cost savings, and productivity to help you win more business.