New Resource Planning and Activity Reporting Manager products help organisations manage demand variability while improving operational efficiency
Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc. subsidiary, has announced the availability of two new modules for the Sterling Warehouse Management Solution (WMS): the Resource Planning module and Activity Reporting Manager module. The new Resource Planning module provides increased visibility into labour performance within the warehouse for improved operational productivity. The new Activity Reporting Manager module ensures accurate billing for tasks executed, enabling companies to understand the true cost to serve multiple clients or divisions.
Sterling WMS reduces inventory and operational costs through the efficient execution of complex processes, inventory and labour for a single warehouse or a distributed warehouse network of diverse facilities. The new modules improve the softwares ability to capture productivity data and create reports based on that activity, making it possible to do more dynamic deployment of labour and more accurate billing for services delivered.
The new Resource Planning module helps companies manage demand variability by providing innovative analytic capabilities that enable dynamic labour deployment. It verifies in real time if demands can be fulfilled with available capacity and, when capacity falls short, helps assign resources to cover the shortfall. The Resource Planning module graphically depicts the balance of workload and resource availability and enables what if scenarios to help organisations manage demand variability, leading to on-time fulfillment and optimal resource utilisation. In addition, it monitors activity with real-time views of operations, enabling continuous improvement for increased productivity.
Labour availability is often the biggest impediment to meeting shorter lead times or providing value-added services when fulfilling orders, said Ken Ramoutar, director of applications product marketing at Sterling Commerce. The Resource Planning module is unique in the industry in using powerful analysis tools to solve this problem, enabling manufacturers, retailers and logistics providers to dynamically manage their labour resources and adapt more quickly to change.
Value-added services are a main staple for companies that manage warehouse operations for others, such as third-party logistics providers or fulfillment houses. These companies also face multi-tenant situations that warrant more accurate billing for tasks executed. To address these needs, Sterling Commerce is introducing a new Activity Reporting Manager module designed to help these companies understand the true cost of serving multiple clients or divisions.
Both the Resource Planning and Activity Reporting Manager modules can leverage labour standards available through the Productivity Manager module of Sterling WMS. This module has been enhanced to offer an innovative new method for creating labour standard benchmarks. By creating a benchmark based on an analysis of historical task execution data instead of engineering standards, Productivity Manager provides labour benchmarks that can be implemented easily and kept current, a challenge for most warehouse operations.
With its service-oriented architecture and process-centric modeling capabilities, Sterling WMS delivers unprecedented supply chain management process agility. It is highly adaptable, enabling rapid process change to ensure consistency across multi-site warehouse operations while providing for facility-specific configuration. Sterling WMS provides a central point of control over complex warehouse operations and across multiple facilities of varying types. Its support for radio frequency identification (RFID) and materials-handling integration, as well as robust planning, execution and measurement tools for distribution managers, brings operational discipline to complex warehouse operations.
About Sterling Commerce
Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), helps 80 percent of the FORTUNE? 500 thrive in a global economy by solving complex business process challenges. The companys innovative software and services integrate customers systems ? inside and outside the four walls of the enterprise ? so companies can conduct business without borders. Sterling Commerce solutions help customers adopt best practices in e-sales, supply chain execution, payment processing and business-to-business integration. The solutions also give executives and front-line managers greater visibility inside and outside the enterprise in order to improve profitability, reduce costs and minimise risk. Sterling Commerce enables businesses to innovate key processes in real time, while continuing to deploy ERP or transaction system infrastructures. With more than 30,000 customers worldwide, Sterling Commerce has unparalleled experience in retail, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, financial services, supply chain, logistics, and telecommunications.
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