We’re always trying to get by with what we’ve got. OMS and WMS tech investments are mistakenly seen as a last resort. Often, the urge to sweat assets can delay deploying the right solutions.
When we think of warehouse software, we naturally think about a WMS system. Some situations with little to no inventory management and maintenance considerations may lend themselves to running a standalone order management system.
The trap appears when we try to extend OMS or WMS platforms beyond their purpose. Just as we would caution those trying to retrofit their ERP into a WMS, the same applies to extending an OMS or WMS beyond its design purpose.
You wouldn’t use a hammer on screws, right?
Deploying the right WMS or OMS system for the right job has an obvious benefit. But that’s simply breaking up the work and assigning it to the right solution.
What’s often underestimated are the combinatory benefits that emerge from an end-to-end platform.
OMS and WMS, more than the sum of the parts
You don’t just get the hammer and the screwdriver; you get several benefits that only emerge when the two are deployed supporting each other.
We’ve discussed the benefits of OMS as a standalone solution. Today, we’ll share how OMS and WMS together create a 1 + 1 = 3 benefit for your omnichannel business.
Supply chain simplified
When you deploy integrated order management and warehouse management systems that are closely coupled, you get tremendous advantages for both your team and your customers, including:
- Streamlined decision-making in complex fulfillment operations
- Improved collaboration
- Labor and operational savings
- Enhanced customer service, and
- Optimal use of all your inventory available to sell
Benefits of integrated OMS and WMS
Common platform, single codebase
Order management software built on a common platform with your WMS means you can easily understand inventory, order, and allocation statuses in all fulfillment locations at the same time.
Single-codebase platforms allow you to get smarter about how much inventory to make available to your sales channels. Data instantly syncs in real-time so there is no delay in selling newly received inventory, or in reducing an inventory position that was transferred out.
Keeping teams and departments in sync means no more lost time spent calling someone (or worse, playing phone/message tag) in the warehouse or head office to check on the status of an order or an exception related to the order.
- A user can quickly check the status of a sales or customer order themselves without needing the help of a different department
- The OMS keeps standard audit trails and detailed order activity with full traceability to establish a high level of trust in the shared OMS and WMS platform
Better customer service
The real-time nature of data flowing between OMS and WMS allows for order changes deeper into the order fulfillment lifecycle. In addition, your Customer Service Representative (CSR) team has real-time insight into each order’s fulfillment status, plus access to complete order activity logs from both OMS and WMS.
Combining these empowers CSRs to quickly answer any WISMO (Where Is My Order) question from a customer, improving customer satisfaction.
Another customer-related benefit is the ability of the CSR team to modify customer orders, including force-allocating orders or line items to a specific facility. Given the full real-time view between OMS and WMS, you can accommodate any special exception/request.
Easily manage special order types
OMS and WMS work together to solve seamlessly for special order types – such as backorders and pre-orders – by letting each inventory management system handle what it does best. Customer orders remain in OMS while reserving inventory units (to prevent overselling) until they are ready to be fulfilled, which allows the WMS to focus on the fulfillment execution.
Backorders
Integrated OMS with WMS systems can reduce overselling and backorders, which happen in one of two ways:
- You know the inventory is not available (but is hopefully coming soon), but you sell it anyway to avoid missing the sale. It is best if these orders don’t go to WMS before receiving inventory.
- You discover during picking that the inventory position was inaccurate, so the order cannot be fulfilled now. In this case, you can send this order back to OMS where it can either find another facility for fulfillment or hold until more inventory arrives.
Pre-orders
Companies often take customer orders for a product launch that is not yet available to sell or on hand to fulfill. An OMS allows them to hold these orders in the system until the specific inventory launch date or until inventory is received.
The order management solution can also enable customer communications to ensure your customers are up to date if anything changes and you need to reset their expectations.
Perform virtual inventory transfers
Rather than physically moving or transferring inventory in the warehouse from one location to another to affect a desired change in availability, an OMS lets you create a virtual transfer from one inventory segment to another. The OMS will track this transfer until that inventory is fully sold.
This movement can affect overall inventory availability or inventory related to a specified sales channel. Having OMS + WMS means all your systems and locations stay up to date in real time.
Let’s simplify your supply chain
Now you understand why having a tightly coupled OMS and WMS has many advantages for your company and your customers.
Your internal teams across departments experience far less frustration by having a common platform containing the right information, in real-time on demand. Your customers will be happier because they have the best possible answers to their order inquiries – which materially benefits customer retention.
OMS and WMS together also allow for easy management of special order types that aren’t ready to be fulfilled to remain in your OMS, changes to availability for virtual transfers, and other tasks that only bog down and distract warehouses using fragmented systems or partners.