for systems integrator Glen Road
Systems Inc.
In the case of a fast-paced, high-
throughput warehouse operation,
for example, one of the top concerns
would likely be the potential for
delays in communications. With a
cloud-based setup, information has
to travel back and forth across the
Internet, making some time lag
inevitable. But even a lag of a frac-
tion of a second could be too long
for tasks that require split-second
timing—like the transmission of
instructions from the WMS to a
high-speed sortation system. “I have
Faithful.
a certain time window to read a bar code
and get that information back to the
sorter,” says Paul Faber, director of software and systems integration at the consulting firm Tompkins Associates.
To prevent these kinds of delays, a
robust warehouse control system (WCS)
is essential, the experts interviewed for
this story agreed. A WCS, which would be
installed at the warehouse, essentially
serves as a local agent for the remote
WMS, downloading information on what
items need to be put away or retrieved
from inventory and then converting the
information into instructions for the
sorters, carousels, conveyors, and so forth
that carry out the tasks. Because the WCS
processes the data on site, it reduces the
risk of delays caused by a disruption in
communications.
But one software executive cautions
that a WCS alone may not be enough.
Chad Collins, vice president of marketing
and strategy at HighJump Software, says
pilots of his company’s cloud-based WMS
indicated that in some cases, a special
“controller unit” might be needed in addition to the WCS. The special controller
would sit between the WMS and the
WCS, relaying real-time information
from the WMS to the on-site warehouse
control system on, say, items needed for a
shipment.
Faithful? Frequency: 45-125 minutes. Duration: 1. 5-5 minutes.
Discharge: 3,700-8,400 gallons. Calling this geyser faithful is
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language emulations so Printronix can integrate into any
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unparalleled quality assurance of
RFID/label deployment throughout the
supply chain. Choose Printronix, we
also don’t smell like rotten eggs.
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www.printronix.com | 1.800.665.6210
A MATTER OF VOLUME
Another consideration for a company
considering a move to the cloud is transaction volume. No matter how robust a
facility’s WCS may be, if its transaction
volume exceeds a certain level, a cloud-based WMS might not be viable because
of the risk of slow response time.
“If you’re in a high-volume environ-
ment, I’d be hard pressed to see someone
doing this,” says Camean. “Bandwidth and
firewall can become a challenge.”
Still, Camean says he wouldn’t rule out
the possibility altogether. If a company
could devise a way to batch communica-
tions from the cloud-based WMS to the
WCS, he says, this type of setup would
work. The WMS would collect instruc-
tions regarding which products need to be
picked for a shipment; the WCS would
then coordinate the activities of the mate-
