Inventory Management System Vs Warehouse Management System

What is the difference between Inventory Management System and Warehouse Management System? 

According to Fraunhofer IML institute* in Germany an Inventory Management System is primarily a system for managing quantities and locations (bins) and their relationships to each other.

In general terms, warehouse management refers to the monitoring, control, and optimization of complex warehouse and distribution systems. In addition to the basic functions of warehouse management, such as quantity and bin management and transport management and scheduling, Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) also include numerous methods and means for controlling the system states and a selection of operating and optimization strategies. The main tasks of a WMS are to manage and optimize the internal warehouse systems.

A WMS helps companies optimize the workflows inside of their warehouses and thus:

• Reduce the time required to fulfill an order.
• Reduce errors due to manual tasks.
• Track the performance of the warehouse process.

Traditional WMS solutions are monolithic and have been slow to adapt to a modern software architecture based on microservices. Modifying the configurations in order to adapt to changing business needs and adding new functionalities is often slow and expensive.

A modern and modular WMS has to:

• Be flexible and easy to integrate using a well defined API.
• Let the admin user change configurations without having to write code.
• Be fast and scalable in the creation of new warehouses in different locations.
• Have an intuitive UX to reduce training time.

These requirements are best achieved through a SaaS such as PulpoWMS.

If you would like to learn more about our innovative approach to warehouse optimization contact us as contact@pulpowms.com to receive a free 30 min consultation from one of our experts or visit our website https://pulpowms.com .

*http://www.warehouse-logistics.com/en/definition-wms-ims.html