Optimize material flow with a centralized WCS—maximizing efficiency, reducing silos and keeping operations running, even amid disruptions
Warehouse Control System
Our Warehouse Control System (WCS) provides a central point of management and control for your entire material handling equipment (MHE) portfolio. It works seamlessly across multiple automation technologies and vendors, enabling you to orchestrate your operations and optimize the flow of material throughout the facility.
Challenges
What are the challenges?
Warehouses and distribution centers (DC) increasingly deploy automation technology and material handling equipment (MHE) to meet rising throughput requirements. This typically leads customers to deploy mixed portfolios of MHE, with different automation technologies from multiple vendors that need to be managed individually. However, managing automation systems individually poses significant challenges. Operating a multi-vendor MHE infrastructure as a unified solution becomes increasingly difficult. It also prevents businesses from leveraging their automation solution to its full potential and from achieving targeted ROI.
Some of the challenges include:
Tracing the cause of malfunctions and bottlenecks is time-consuming
Material routing can not be changed fast enough to accommodate receipt changes or to avoid problem zones
Lack of end-to-end material visibility across the automation chain
The rise of smart warehouses
Benefits
What are the benefits?
Our WCS offer provides a vendor-neutral solution that effectively orchestrates diverse material handling technologies. Serving as a centralized hub, it coordinates and manages transport tasks across different warehouse automation systems. It also ensures uninterrupted material flow, even in the event of device failures.
Continuously optimized material flow
End-to-end automation visibility
Vendor-agnostic flexibility
Scalable by design
The WCS integrates with the Warehouse Management System (WMS), leveraging order and inventory information to optimize the material flow. It also interfaces with the logic controllers in the MHE to directly control material movements. The result is seamless process integration, from the WMS to the physical material handling aspects.
Our WCS also enhances warehouse throughput and performance, enabling customers to fully utilize their MHEs and unlock unrealized productivity gains.
Our expert team will work closely with you to tailor the WCS implementation to your specific requirements and automation environment, maximizing its performance and ROI.
“The flexible and modular architecture of the Infios platform enables us to introduce new automation technologies as needed and seamlessly integrate them into our existing logistics processes.”
Capabilities
Our WMS capabilities
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Automated environments
Our WCS manages and controls mixed portfolios of MHE and automation equipment. This means it is a natural fit for the type of complex warehouse operations that analyst firm Gartner describes as level 4 (intelligent) and level 5 (automated) warehouse facilities. These typically process large amounts of orders which necessitate the broader use of MHE and warehouse automation.
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Deployment flexibility
Our WCS solution offers a high level of integration capability – not only with various supported automation equipment, but also with the customer’s existing supply chain systems landscape. It also seamlessly integrates with our WMS as well as third-party solutions.
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New or existing facilities
Our project teams have successfully completed numerous WCS implementations. When it comes to greenfield facilities, we work closely with system integrators and automation vendors to model and simulate the operation and performance of the future automation solution. This ensures that the WCS delivers high-level performance and scalability. In existing facilities, the WCS can be deployed into the existing automation landscape and ongoing operation to minimize downtime.
Customer-proven impact
Case studies
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50%Increase in picking productivity
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25%Increase in throughput speed
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100%Sales growth
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100MUnits shipped / year
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100%Increase in goods throughput
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83%Decrease in throughput time
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50%Increase in warehouse performance
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30%Increase in effective space usage
Insights
Explore this topic further
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Whitepaper
The rise of smart warehouses
Integrate your Warehouse Management System (WMS) with other supply chain solutions and technologies to digitize your warehouse operation and boost operational efficiency
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Blog
WMS or WCS? Understand your technology for greater optimization
Understanding the differences between WMS and WCS is essential for making informed decisions about warehouse technology.
Optimize material flow with a centralized WCS—maximizing efficiency, reducing silos and keeping operations running, even amid disruptions
Integrate your Warehouse Management System (WMS) with other supply chain solutions and technologies to digitize your warehouse operation and boost operational efficiency
Understanding the differences between WMS and WCS is essential for making informed decisions about warehouse technology.
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