The supply chain execution suite comes of age at RedPrairie

Once looked upon as separate buys, warehouse and transportation management systems are increasingly purchased and used together as core components of the supply chain execution suite.

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 5/9/2007

Not that long ago, Tom Kozenski and Erv Bluemner might have met separately with a reporter to talk about their products. Today, Kozenski, RedPrairie’s vice president of product marketing for distribution solutions including warehouse management systems (WMS), and Bluemner, the vice president for global transportation management solutions (TMS), are sitting in a room together to talk about RedPrairie’s suite of supply chain execution applications.

That says a lot about how far the supply chain execution suite has come since we published our first story about an integrated transportation and warehouse management solution – or T/WMS - back in June of 2002.

Then, the supply chain execution suite was more talk than action. Vendors were talking about the benefits of an integrated suite of solutions like transportation and warehouse management but end users weren’t buying.

“You were selling to a warehouse manager who didn’t have anything to do with transportation, or a transportation manager who wasn’t responsible for the warehouse,” Kozenski remembers. “Try to talk about a suite of applications, and most companies just weren’t interested.”

Software buying changes along with the supply chain
Today, adds Bluemner, the title of the individual taking the first look at the system has changed. “Instead of a warehouse- or transportation-centric title, we’re talking to a vice president of supply chain who has responsibility for it all,” Bluemner says. “That individual is often looking for a suite, and RFPs (request for proposal) are asking for both WMS and TMS.”

Bluemner’s and Kozenski’s observations were confirmed last year in a survey of Modern’s readers. A significant number of respondents are using a WMS and TMS. In addition, they are also using or planning to implement supply chain execution applications like labor management (LMS), yard management (YMS) and various manufacturing systems. All are in RedPrairie’s arsenal.

The change is a reflection of just how strategic, and complicated, the supply chain has become for many companies. “Major retailers are getting a supply of goods from China that are going to be sorted and crossdocked from the port to a regional DC and then flow into the stores,” says Bluemner. “To make that happen, you need tight integration between transportation and warehousing activities.”

It’s also a reflection of another shift currently underway. “Once, the manufacturing plant was king,” says Kozenski. “You made product and pushed it out to warehouses and stores. Now, the store is becoming the focal point of the supply chain. A demand signal from the store is what drives replenishment from the DC and ultimately all the way back to the manufacturer.”

And like managing the flow of goods from the port to the store, managing that demand signal also takes a suite of applications.

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