The WMS acronym stands for Warehouse Management System, comprising the management of warehouses and deposit areas, is responsible for the control of products inside the warehouse or inside the company warehousing area.
One of the main features of this system is to identify the best storage area for each product, following the restrictions imposed on it and controlling such information as expiration date, lot (activating traceability control) and the quick location of any stored item.
A warehouse is the physical area intended for the storage and maintenance of inventories.
The terms Storage and Warehousing were used as synonymous for a long time. However, the first term refers to the usability of stock and the second term refers to the operation of the physical keeping of stock.
In the current nomenclature, it is common to use the expression Distribution Center; however, many authors refer to Distribution Center as a warehouse dedicated to the operation of finished products.
In general, a warehouse presents four basic purposes:
Inside a warehouse or distribution center, the following basic activities are processed:
Infrastructure
The warehousing operation results from the sum of four basic components:
The correct dimensioning of these components and the perfect integration among them help to reduce the warehousing costs.