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handle the strain of e-commerce.
Generally speaking, that decision
will come down to the software’s
ability to deliver the required speed
and throughput, accommodate
fluctuations in order demand, and
meet technical requirements such as
ensuring consumers’ private infor-
mation is kept secure, according to
Matthew Butler, director of indus-
trial strategy and supply chain exe-
cution at JDA Software Group Inc.
Not suprisingly, the decision
becomes more complicated when
the user is a third-party logistics
service provider (3PL) that serves
a wide array of clients, each with differ-
ent requirements. One such company is
ODW Logistics, a Columbus, Ohio-based
3PL whose clients range from companies
in the healthcare and beauty, food and
beverage, and consumer goods sectors to
industrial and automotive sector players.
For the past 20 years, the company has
relied on a legacy WMS that allowed it
to process a mix of big-box retail orders
and individual e-commerce shipments.
But the rise of e-commerce has changed
the dynamic, says Macy Bergoon, ODW’s
vice president of information technology.
“An order is an order, and a shipment
is a shipment, but when the mix changes
from [truckload and less-than-truckload
freight] to parcel, UPS, and FedEx, the
number of orders you have to handle
is reversed,” Bergoon says. “Instead of
sending WalMart 100 orders with 10,000
pieces each, with e-commerce you have to
send 10,000 orders with one piece each.”
The latter is particularly important
because many of ODW’s retail clients
want real-time order information they
can share with their customers, Bergoon
says. “If a customer can cancel their order
at any given time, that means the days of
saying ‘Hey, we already picked your order
and it’s on its way to the retail store’ are
over. Right up until the moment that
order gets put on the truck, you have to
have the ability to stop the order, because
the retailer is offering that option to the
consumer.”
In the end, the decision when to upgrade
or replace a WMS generally comes down to
what kind of return on investment (ROI)
