Logistics Management recently quoted St. Onge Company’s Howard Turner in an article about how ERP systems are evolving to play a more central role in driving visibility, automation, and real-time decision-making. Howard discussed how ERP vendors are expanding their SCM capabilities—including WMS, TMS, and YMS features to rival best-of-breed systems and offer a single, unified platform for supply chain operations. Use the link below to read the article!
“ERPs are integrating both downstream and upstream and using APIs to establish and enhance those various connections,” says Howard Turner, director, supply chain systems at St. Onge Co. In some cases, those connections involve best of breed warehouse management systems (WMS), for example, while others focus on business-specific warehouse automation solutions.
Regardless of which functions the integrated system addresses, the real benefit lies in the data sharing that takes place once the disparate solutions are working from the same data repository. “WMS has traditionally offered visibility within the warehouse, while ERP provides a broader view of inventory,” says Turner. “Bringing that data into a control tower and integrating vendor information helps build a more complete picture of the supply chain.”
Turner also says ERP vendors continue to extend their SCM suites by adding more functionalities to their current offerings plus WMS, transportation management systems (TMS), yard management systems (YMS) as well as other add-ons to their platforms.
This is helping them “get on par” with best of breed systems, Turner adds. “ERPs continue to invest in and build out that functionality in order to provide a single view of a company’s supply chain operations on one platform.”
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