What are Loading and Shipping In a Warehouse Management System?
When an order is picked, the picked items are usually placed temporarily at the staging area of a warehouse. With many picked orders lying at the staging area in a busy warehouse, it can be very overwhelming if it is not well managed.
When a truck is assigned to pick up for delivery in a warehouse, that delivery can be for one order, but often enough, a truck is to pick up for more than one order. After the goods are loaded into the truck (loading), the truck leaves the warehouse (shipping), reaches the destination, unload the goods and handover them to the recipient (delivering).
The loading feature records the name and time of the people involved in loading the items into the truck. The shipping function records the truck detail such as driver name and helper, the time the truck enters and leaves the warehouse. The delivering function tracks the trace movement, the arrival time, the GPS location, photos and signature of the person receiving the items.
Loading and Shipping are functions of a Warehouse Management System(WMS). WMS manages operation in the warehouse, so at the moment the truck leaves the warehouse, that is the end process of a WMS. The delivering is usually handled by another system such as an Electronic Proof of Delivery system.
If you are operating an eCommerce warehouse, the operation is a bit different which may not require features of loading, shipping & delivering. For most of the eCommerce warehouses, after picking and packing, that is the end of a warehouse process. The packing process usually includes either printing or applying a shipping barcode for tracking purposes, and the delivery is usually handled by courier companies such as FedEx, DHL or SF.
If you are purchasing a WMS, my recommendation is to always get one that has (or will have) the shipping & loading features. The reason is that if you are operating a warehouse, why do you want to limit your capability to only eCommerce? You want to ensure you can respond to opportunities when they knock on your door.
Click to look at some good warehouse management systems.
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Originally published at https://www.ac2wave.com on January 25, 2021.
