The following article appears in the February 2015 issue of DC Velocity magazine. Fashion Forward, By David Maloney, Chief Editor, DC Velocity—E-commerce is here to stay. If there were any doubt about that, the more than $100 billion spent online this past holiday season should be proof that consumers like the convenience of shopping anytime and from anywhere.
Read about VARGO®’s warehouse execution system (WES) solution in Modern Materials Handling’s November, 1, 2014, article, “What can WES do for you?”… Omni-channel pressures are driving modular warehouse execution suites built on a WCS core. Here’s how these solutions differ from traditional WCS below and WMS above, and manage fulfillment operations in new, dynamic ways.
Retailer Takes New Approach to Optimizing Direct-to-Consumer Warehouse Operations
“The retailer implemented VARGO’s COFE warehouse control system (WCS) to increase warehouse deficiencies at this DC and to help decrease its overall cost of the project. COFE (Continuous Order Fulfillment Engine) was designed with an e-fulfillment focus. It is quite different than traditional WCS solutions. Most WCS solutions work to improve the efficiency of one or more material handling systems, such as the conveyance and sortation systems in this DC. However, the COFE solution also seeks to optimize human deficiencies. When it comes to improving human deficiencies, part of what differentiates the COFE solution is a very different way of looking at waves.”
Retail: Inside the multi-channel DC
Four approaches to multi-channel distribution show how the same tried and trusted technology can enable efficient store replenishment while keeping e-commerce customers happy.
“Art Eldred, client executive of system sales at Vargo Solutions,says the multi-channel challenge is not about simply fulfilling an order, but assembling that order. Order assembly used to happen at the store, says Eldred, and commonly bundled SKUs could be sent to that store independently. In pushing that function back to the DC, order selection processes that once proved very effective for store order fulfillment can quickly break down.”
