Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) are the most interesting themes in the field of program development. A last solutions experience exposes that there is no the same warehouses in the world (excluding branches of a sole enterprise). From one hand such differences are related to features of delivering goods (they must be taken into consideration) and from the other hand it depends to a marketing strategy and a way of business management.
It is important to make right accents when you create WMS. For some clients a question number one is to follow parties (actual for pharmaceutical goods) for others is significant a turnover or to follow keep conditions (temperature, are and light mode) When warehouse is not a base of company business and is not an undividing part (for example stationery resource for office) then you can quite use any of accountant program (three pens in use and one is remained)
But when a warehouse is object of fixed attention of top managers and is matter of constant control it needs something more effective and complicated. Besides one main task is decomposed to some separated subtasks which can be follows: demand forecasting, goods purchasing, remains optimization, goods allocation, logistics control, data analyses, situation modeling and so on.
Fig.1 Three-dimensional warehouse visualization.
Those tasks we solved before for our client accordingly to their needs. And whatever a new solution could be a client obtained the result in an abstract form. It means cold calculation, delivering dates, some warehouse projections: special reports for store filling, shelf life and others. It is impossible to lead everything for a one document because of complex of such report. That is why we inferred that it is necessary something to demonstrate the situation.
3D popular computers games became a key. Why do not consider a warehouse as a game where a person can virtual go through the placement and see all resources conditions in real time. Of course to create all tree-dimensions pictures for every goods is expensive deal so we limited with cubes (as a pallet). For the most cases all goods are packed in boxes.
Besides we can color the boxes. For example if deadline is near we color it in red if not green. We can do something the same for turnover, profit, weight. On the air the program can make ABC-analyses and will show every box and its place. A number of characteristics are unlimited and they can be combined. It is evident then colors should be able to tune for every task.
After 3D model of warehouse is created everything are settled to their places. If you need a new place for goods it ought to be provided in advance by visual designer. Further you will see the store as you draw it. It could be strange if no rooms in the future or no changes for existence rooms. All for this is developed in a special part of the system. All data of pallets (boxes, containers etceteras) moving are taken from a WMS database. It is not a matter weather this system is only accountant module or huge ERP system or just MS Excel sheet.
As you have got full data in your WMS program as full reflection you have got in "Storage 3D". If you have got separated parties or terms of storage then our system can display them. If you have got addition information (for instance reserved goods) then we can show it.
To make warehouse showing more quick and effective we provided slices of store design and view cameras settings (there are two different approaches). After that you are have no needzs to walk around the whole room but you can quickly turn on a suitable camera (by click Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3). The slices give a flat picture and can be shown one by one. Of course we added the same action like in games "Turn around", "Jump to ceiling", "Down to floor", "Step aside" and so on.
Fig.2 Designer for Virtual Storage 3D.
What to do with store behavior simulation? A logistician (a store Supervisor) is to have not only a current state picture (even 3D) but all of previous disposition of goods. For example when breaking point occurred (not enough places to keep) and you are to evaluate your store for the last night. There is such possibility in the system. To do that just move the time (or weeks or months) for required moment in the past. It is very important to get all necessary data.
When an employee says many pallets leaves out of the warehouse the number of them can be any quantity. For some employees 3 pallets is too many. How often does it happen? All of these questions are subject for simulation and analyses. You should see not the past situation but to try to see situation in the future for all proper services coordination.
For this task we use forecasting, statistics of last years, trends, expert estimates. But after all calculations the final result has to be shown as what will happen tomorrow, in a week, in a month. Our new module solves exactly such problem. We realized store visualization for every moment in the past and in the future.
Fig.3 You can move current date and time.
Basic evaluate store behavior can be parted to four main components:
- Data collection and calculations
- Data Analyses
- Situation modeling
- 3D visualization
Our visual designer Storage-3D is only top of a big iceberg of many people work: managers, programmers, analysts. We can say that this is a valuable tool which based on many company departures work and it allows you to take a responsible decision.
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