I have several partners who are immersed in the nether world of warehouse management systems (WMS). I am an old-timer, constantly on the lookout for quick and dirty solutions to small- and medium-sized operations. So, when we need to determine the level of sophistication for the information systems support, I argue for as much simplicity as possible. They, on the other hand, seem to always gravitate toward systems that appear complicated.

For instance, I wonder why we can't just have a simple locator system, and print out all of the orders in product number sequence. That would be OK, but how would you manage the reserve inventory, they ask. Or, what will you do when a product becomes obsolete and you don't need the picking location anymore?

When an order needs a full case, or a full pallet quantity, my partners ask if it is better to take those from the pick face, too. Wouldn't it be better to break the order into separate picking tasks based on the unit of measure requested? OK, I agree.

Sometimes I get this. Should we send pickers out looking for product that is not there? Or is it better to compare the order with on-hand inventory in the pick face, and then include only those products on the pick list that we believe are there, and available for this customer? Yeah, yeah.

Then I'm confronted with – do you want to print out the pick lists as the orders are received, or wait until it is time to process them and check the most current availability? Or, might we want to hold them until we have several orders and pick them as a batch?

That gets followed by – do we really want to print pick lists at all? Would it be more efficient and more accurate to use wireless terminals and scanners to direct the picker? Maybe they have a point there.

If we know that products are scheduled for receipt today, they ask, is it better to wait and pick the order after the products have been putaway? Or, if popular products have been on backorder, is it better to intercept them at the receiving dock and get them out today?

As if that's not enough, they want to know where I want to put the workstation for weighing the order, selecting the carrier and labeling the cartons. Or, would I rather pre-print the shipping labels based on weights in the product database and pre-established rules for carrier selection? Well, yeah, I guess.

There's also the issue of employee accountability. Is it important who received the product, put it away or picked the order? Or, is it better to berate the entire staff for mistakes? How will we establish expectations? How will we identify the best, and worst performers?

And to top it all off, they want to know if I really want to shut down the operation for two or three days and bring everybody in for 10–12 hours a day to take the physical inventory? Wouldn't it be better to check the inventory in each location periodically as the operator is there to perform a putaway or picking task?

These guys keep asking me so many embarrassing questions that I'm afraid to argue anymore. Maybe that fully functional WMS package is a good investment.

Jim Apple can be contacted at japple@theprogressgroup.com