What are the biggest WMS challenges in warehouse management?

Every company faces days where the warehouse struggles. Things break, go wrong, orders are canceled, or a stack of boxes is discovered in a corner, and now you’ve spent too much on your restock. Or, you find a giant box with only one product left inside, meaning new sales have to go on backorder.

These are just some of the worries that face warehouse managers each day. Understanding these challenges and how to address them can transform your warehouse operations into a well-oiled machine.

This guide delves into the challenges of warehouse management and their solutions, touching on issues like inventory control, layout optimization, logistics, and transportation.

What are the problems of warehousing?

Warehousing is fraught with complexities that often revolve around inventory management. Some of the most common problems in warehouse operations include:

1. Inaccurate inventory counts

Mismanaged inventory leads to discrepancies between what’s recorded and what’s actually in stock. This can cause:

• Backorders, shipping delays, and frustrated customers.
• Overstocking, resulting in wasted space and unnecessary expenditure.
• Perishable goods going to waste due to mismanagement.

Check out our WMS comparison to find the best warehouse management software for your business

2. Space utilization issues

Poor warehouse layout can cause inefficiencies in storage and retrieval, increasing labor costs and slowing down order fulfillment.

3. Manual processes

When operations rely heavily on manual efforts, errors are inevitable. From inventory counts to order picking, manual tasks are prone to inaccuracies and inefficiencies.

How do you fix inventory problems?

The best way to address your inventory management issues is to introduce automation and checks to your counts. These are the main WMS challenges that vendors approach.

They want to make it easy for you to understand what you have and keep those counts accurate — because when they save you money on storage and labor, you’re more likely to stick with their software.

Modern warehouse management systems offer tools to improve accuracy and efficiency through:

• Barcode scanning and RFID tracking: Automatically track goods as they move through the warehouse.
• Real-time data updates: Maintain accurate inventory counts with systems that sync immediately after transactions.
• Optimized storage solutions: Use data analytics to identify fast-moving products and store them near packing stations for quicker access.

Implement cycle counting to regularly check inventory accuracy without halting operations.

Why layout and product placement matter

A well-organized warehouse layout is key to improving efficiency and reducing costs. Challenges arise when storage areas are disorganized or not optimized for workflows.

If you’re not tracking location or you don’t have a system that keeps the position of products consistent, then pickers will take longer to find things, slowing down every other point in the shipping process. They’ll also take longer for each pick order, increasing your labor costs per order.

Steps to address layout challenges

Most new systems do come with tracking and analytics that can help you optimize your warehouse inventory location and even adjust them ahead of peak seasons.

You need to not only have the right amount of space, but you’ve got to use it right too.

• Zoning by demand: Place fast-moving items closer to packing stations.
• Grouping related products: Store frequently purchased items together to reduce picking times.
• Accessibility for heavy items: Position bulky items near forklifts to minimize handling risks.

These improvements can also support better handling of canceled orders or returns, ensuring accurate inventory counts and seamless restocking.

What are the challenges in logistics?

Logistics is a vital component of warehouse management that often faces integration and communication issues. Specific pain points include:

• Integration with other systems: Many warehouses struggle to connect their WMS with external platforms like e-commerce, CRM, and ERP systems. When there’s a gap or a broken integration, your team faces manual tasks and redundancies that cost time and money, plus can yield inaccuracies that lead to major headaches.
• Supplier and partner coordination: Misaligned schedules or data discrepancies with suppliers can cause delays.

Solution:

What you want to look for is a WMS vendor who has experience integrating with the software and partners you’ve got. A WMS that specializes in large-scale manufacturing will likely incorporate well with supply chain tools needed around raw material and component sourcing, helping you protect your long-term capabilities.

E-commerce-oriented WMS vendors will likely make it easy for you to integrate with leading platforms such as WooCommerce and Shopify so that multiple channels feed into your order system without hiccups.

The warehouse is a central hub of business, receiving goods from some spokes, and delivering them to others. Warehouse software plays much the same role, and its familiarity with your spokes can make integration, adoption, and long-term savings much simpler.

Transportation challenges in warehousing

Transportation costs are usually right behind labor in the list of concerns your managers have. These costs encompass everything from delays in inventory and orders to maintenance and insurance as well as touching on inventory control.

Check out this article on integrating WMS and TMS to find out more

The WMS challenges typically come from areas where you’re focused on shipping and receiving goods, keeping everything on time and flowing. When you’ve got a tight operation, understanding transportation expectations makes it easy to cross-dock and streamline your putaway to make the most of your inventory and labor.

Another essential element is the relationships your warehouse has with carriers. You may have negotiated relationships to reduce costs for packages. However, there’s never a perfect carrier for every package. So, your WMS needs to be able to understand product differences for things like DIM weight and shipping zones in your country.

If you’re not using a WMS to select the best carrier, you could be overpaying based on package weight, size, volume, and delivery targets. For larger operations, this extends to shipping routes and lanes across modes, making a robust WMS even more essential.

Overcoming challenges in warehouse management

There’s an underlying current to the challenges we’ve discussed so far: customer expectations. The need to go fast and make no mistakes while also understanding exactly how long it’ll take you to ship your next sale are all goals centered on providing a good customer experience by meeting their expectations.

Every movement in a warehouse is designed around making that end customer happy while keeping operations affordable.

Bring this same mentality to the way you want to solve your warehouse concerns. You’re now the customer and you’re looking for a WMS solution that makes your day easier by meeting expectations. This is your best mindset for speaking with vendors and asking about capabilities. Discuss what they have to offer in terms of how it helps you and ultimately your customers.

There are checklists, selection options, comparison tools, and many other tools that can help you prepare as well. Just don’t forget that your expectations are an important driving force in this WMS selection.