Benefits of remote deployment of Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and cloud
Posted on 11 August 2024 in General
The benefits of being able to deploy a system remotely via the cloud are enormous. The important thing to consider is that a WMS still remains an operational system.
So, because we use the term ‘rapid’ to describe what is effectively a sub-set of the functionality of our Enterprise WMS solution, one must still follow the processes required for the implementation of an operational system.
Rapid, must not imply ‘quick and cheap’. IT must still be aligned with the needs of business, and whilst this solution comprises technology components it is still a business solution designed to support the business’s strategy.
Therefore, all organisations must still ensure that appropriate change management processes are in place.
Added to this, customers often insist their business is very simple and straight forward and they do not require a complex system until one gets to the nitty gritty, and they start asking for many ‘specific’/unique requirements.
This is where our skill in understanding warehousing and knowing how to tailor Cquential comes in.
Historically, there may have been issues with bandwidth but there has been a significant improvement in bandwidth speeds and the costs have come down substantially. The biggest hurdle is not a technical one, but a human one, where there are still perceptions that operational systems cannot be run over the cloud.
We have sites running extremely large transaction volumes, and some of them half way across the world running successfully out of data centres in SA, with full disaster recovery capabilities.
It is important to note that we developed this system from scratch for the cloud and the advantage of being in SA, where we did have very poor bandwidth forced us to develop the system in such a way that it is extremely light (in relation to data usage) and fast. We have environments where clients can continue scanning and picking via RF / wireless mobile scanners on a live basis, with sub-second response time, via a 3G card.
In the next article in this series, Steve will elaborate on the benefits of cloud technology.
For further information: www.cquential.com