Modern Materials Handling - November 2012

modern 60 Seconds with...Ian HobkirkCommonwealthSupply ChainAdvisorsTitle: Managing directorLocation: Boston, Mass.Experience: 19 years in supply chain,including consulting and systemsintegration. Hobkirk is a former analystwith The Aberdeen Group.Primary Focus: Distribution centerdesign, network optimization, WMS selectionand implementation.Modern: What is driving endusersto upgrade their warehousemanagement systems (WMS)systems today?Hobkirk: There are really twodifferent markets. Big, establishedcompanies that already have a WMSare modernizing their systems. Thenyou have up-and-coming companiesthat don’t have anything beyond aninventory management system. Thereare different drivers in each of thosemarkets.Modern: Can you give someexamples?Hobkirk: For the establishedcompanies, one big driver is thatSAP and Oracle have come outwith significantly enhanced WMSofferings. Those releases havecoincided with a generation of CIOsthat have already been throughsystem replacements and are lesswilling to look at best-of-breedsystems. The pendulum has alwaysswung between IT and operations,and now it’s swinging toward IT. Istill wouldn’t put enterprise resourceplanning (ERP) WMS on par with best-of-breed for complex distributionenvironments, but there is a lot offunctionality there that didn’t exist afew years ago.Modern: What role is e-commerceplaying in WMS upgrades?Hobkirk: It’s playing a significantrole. Retailers are upgrading theirmaterials handling systems. Theyneed to do more complex thingslike cartonization, wave picking andcluster picking because their laborcosts to do piece picking are out ofcontrol. They need more accuratesystems. Maybe they want to managemore than one forward pick locationfor the same SKU. There are alsofactors outside of e-commerce thatare causing companies to upgradetheir WMS systems. One of those isthe need for task interleaving andtrue “task-driven warehousing.”They’re discovering that a lot oflegacy systems just can’t handle thoseprocesses. It’s not in their DNA.Modern: How about the up-andcomingcompanies that don’t reallyhave a WMS?Hobkirk: For them, it’s harder thanever to select a WMS. You’ve had alot of atrophy in the industry. Five orsix years ago, you had a few largeplayers, but you also had half adozen or so mid-tier companies withlarge user bases. The large playersare still there, but a number of thesolid mid-tier companies have beenacquired or are less visible. On onehand, the mid-tier WMS players havereally improved their features andfunctionality, but there are also morevendors that are less well-known. It’sjust harder for a user to figure outwho they should talk to. M66 N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 2 / Modern Materials Handling mmh.com