Why your WMS may be the weakest link in your supply chain

From workflow automation to intelligent execution

In the same Oxford Economics study, 67% of transportation and logistics leaders are also piloting or planning to apply AI to further optimize their inventory management. Typically, this means combining AI with their mobile and RFID technologies and their Warehouse Management System (WMS), data collection and workflow automation to create a new technological frontier for further gains and improvements.

It makes perfect sense when you consider that, even if you're already maximizing your existing labor force and processes, you still want to keep improving your efficiency, productivity and profitability. Even if you're already using mobile computing or RFID to help automate your workflows, eliminate manual processes and paperwork, and capture and connect the data and teams you need to orchestrate logistics and transportation—there's still an opportunity to improve.

That means looking for ways to further automate and streamline your processes and finding additional ways to optimize. The key to this is gaining better operational intelligence, so you can find and capitalize on those opportunities. AI-driven orchestration is fast providing the fastest and most reliable way to do this.

Whether you're still modernizing and optimizing your inventory management and supply chain execution processes, or you're already among the leaders achieving phenomenal results, AI is now able to provide an additional intelligence layer to your operations and your business. By automatically analyzing your supply chain data and workflows, it helps orchestrate and optimize your supply chain execution, intelligently identifying new opportunities and improvements to enable better productivity and efficiency.

The crucial AI factor in warehouse management

One major key to achieving this is to use the right warehouse and supply chain execution software, with AI capabilities embedded into your supply chain operations and execution. With the right system, AI can connect with your business systems and leverage data insights collected from the edge of your company's operations—through the use of Zebra mobile computing, workflow automation, barcoding and RFID solutions.

For example, with Infios supply chain execution software, including warehouse management, AI models and capabilities are embedded into an intelligence layer that becomes the "operating brain" of your supply chain execution software. It unifies your data, embeds and applies AI analysis, and helps you make better real-time and long-term decisions as well as take further steps toward optimization.

Whereas traditional Warehouse Management Systems help you execute transactions and record, store and access inventory and supply chain data, a WMS with embedded AI enables true real-time orchestration with optimal options and recommendations. It gives you foresight to anticipate, adapt and act more proactively and strategically.

Legacy WMS vs AI-enabled WMS

One way to think of it: a legacy WMS might help capture, store and move data, but it doesn't necessarily make your supply chain, your workflows or your management any smarter. Often, a legacy WMS is still static, fragmented or slow, giving you mere snapshots of what's already happened.

AI agents built into your WMS are able to see across your entire operations and help you get from siloed planning and reactionary fixes to real-time visibility, decision-making, action and forward-looking strategy and optimization.

The difference comes down to two things:

• Legacy systems record and report — they show you what has already happened

• AI-enabled systems analyze, recommend and adapt — they help you act on what's happening now and anticipate what's coming next

Examples of what embedded AI can do for you

There are many ways that warehouses and transportation and logistics hubs can use AI and their WMS to their advantage. Here are a few key examples.

Unified visibility across OMS, WMS and TMS

A common challenge in many supply chains is that your Order Management System (OMS) is often separate from both your WMS and your Transportation Management System (TMS). That makes it difficult to see everything happening across these systems and make effective decisions, because there isn't a centralized visibility layer or a single source of truth.

By embedding AI into your WMS and your workflows, it can connect with each of your execution systems and unify all of this data to create one source of truth. It provides a convenient and accessible visibility layer, so you can truly start orchestrating your operations with end-to-end vision, awareness and accuracy.

Proactive disruption prevention

When AI agents and models are running within your WMS environment, they can recommend and automate responses and decisions before disruptions occur or potential issues escalate. So if there are potential replenishment issues such as stockouts, or process bottlenecks that are slowing things down, your embedded AI can detect these problems automatically—even before they occur—and recommend the best action to minimize downstream impact.

Faster troubleshooting at scale

If you're trying to troubleshoot an emerging supply chain issue, AI can do a lot of the analysis and data crunching for you, at scale, reducing your troubleshooting time from hours to minutes. It can search, process and analyze unified data from across your systems, identify problem sources, recommend steps and help you take corrective action much faster and more effectively.

Four use cases in action

1. Solving stockouts

Suppose a stockout has occurred at a particular warehouse, perhaps from an order surge. With AI embedded in your supply chain execution, your intelligence layer can bridge data from your OMS, WMS and TMS in real time to identify alternate inventory availability at other warehouses and reroute fulfillment. Or you can quickly see other replenishment options from suppliers in your supply chain.

It can also evaluate carriers and recommend the fastest, most cost-effective fulfillment path based on service level agreements (SLAs) with your carriers. This means you can resolve a sudden stockout quickly and with minimal disruption, so you can maintain customer promises and contain your fulfillment and shipping costs in the process.

2. Fixing an incomplete order

If you're seeing an order that hasn't been completely fulfilled, shipped or delivered, you can simply ask your AI agent: "What's wrong with order 1234?" The system then traces the issue to discover the root cause and can reprioritize tasks to make sure it's addressed and the order is completed in real time.

For example, it might be an inventory error, missed replenishment or an upstream delay. Your AI agent can deduce the root cause from your supply chain data and events, and it can recommend and prioritize the tasks to fix the issue so it can be resolved in real time. This way, you can resolve issues in minutes instead of hours or even days, improving fulfillment and efficiency while minimizing time spent on firefighting.

3. Filling visibility gaps in transport management

Even with modern logistics tracking, shipments can fall into blind spots due to offline electronic logging devices (ELDs), missing updates or delayed carrier feeds. This means your staff can end up scrambling to call drivers, update portals and answer inquiries from frustrated customers.

With the right transport management in place, your AI agents can step in automatically and contact drivers or carriers, log location updates and sync data into portals—so you and your customers stay informed and visibility gaps get filled without extra manual effort from your operations team.

4. Launching a new sales channel

You can also use AI-enabled supply chain execution in highly strategic ways, such as launching a new sales channel. If your new channel is a huge success or products go viral, this can create chaos—especially if you don't have the right inventory levels, hold windows or optimal workflows to support sudden peak demand and fulfillment needs.

With intelligent order management that leverages AI, you can simply ask your AI agent to add a new channel and your intelligence layer can automatically build the right business rules and workflows for you. For example, if you're launching a new campaign using TikTok, it can:

• Reserve 10% of your product inventory for TikTok demand

• Apply a 30-minute hold window to reduce cancellations

• Create the rest of your rules and processes to help prepare you for success

Your operator can adjust and confirm the setup before it's approved and goes live—but it can be up and running in just minutes, allowing you to contain inventory exposure and avoid cancellations while launching confidently and at scale.