Large parcels, small parcels, totes, pallets or inventoried assets; if you need to store and retrieve it, we have the expertise to manage and automate your warehouse. The WCS controls and monitors your fully or semi-automated material handling systems, as well as manages order fulfillment tasks to help you streamline your operations. ISN's warehouse control systems uses a mixture of software and hardware technologies including conveyors, barcode scanners, singulators, high speed sortation systems, cameras, automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS), dimensioners, HMI graphics and alarms, real time dashboards, on-demand reporting systems, and databases to process material in your facility. Alerts all happen in real-time so that workers can handle small problems before they have a chance to grow. This helps keep the distribution system up and running, and keeps your product moving. ISN can provide WCS solutions in a variety of industries including:
Order picking, or order fulfillment as it's also known, is the supply chain process of removing products from their storage bins and packaging them for a specified order delivery. In a highly competitive e-commerce environment, processing orders quickly and accurately is important to maintain customer loyalty and to provide overall satisfaction. These picking systems can also be used to replenish store inventory for small businesses or storefront locations. With the right system design, it is possible to fill thousands of orders per day. ISN engineers have been involved in many Pick to Light system integration projects, where employees are directed by lights and numbered displays to choose which products to pack. The Pick to Light pick and pack system provides a paperless and hands free process which improves both the speed and accuracy of employees.
When a product has been purchased or received from an external party, it will be delivered along with a purchase order and an Advanced Shipping Notification (ASN). This product needs to be processed and put away. An ASN typically contains purchase order information and an expected arrival time of the goods. ISN automates the receiving process by integrating inline scanners, conveyor systems, manual scan points, and real-time sortation systems to move goods to their appropriate storage location. These goods are then linked directly to a bin or location that they are stored in via a unique bin ID. An automated system enables receiving employees to determine if they have received the material which they are expected to receive while beginning the inventory management process all within the four walls of a facility.
Operators manually keying product information into a computer system or writing down information with pen and paper is typically an error prone technique. This data can be automatically input into an inventory management system by using inline barcode scanners or RFID readers. Recording multiple transactions in a warehouse can improve the integrity of your inventory data. This is achieved by implementing scan points at various spots along the material handling process to create more visibility into your distribution facility.
For larger facilities that deal with an extremely high volume of inventory, it may be worthwhile to utilize an automated storage and retrieval system. An ASRS is able to automate the storage and retrieval of pallets or totes of product using a combination of cranes, lifts, racks, barcode scanners, and conveyor systems. They are an alternative to a traditionally manual labor process which relies on the use of fork lifts to store and retrieve items. An ASRS process comes with the added benefit that it is less prone to human error which helps improve the overall reliability of your warehousing operation.
ISN's electrical and controls teams have deployed conveyor systems built on a variety of material handling solutions, be it 24V DC single phase roller conveyor, 380V/480V/600V AC 3 phase roller conveyor or chain driven systems. We have integrated roller conveyor solutions from a variety of North American manufacturers including:
Our teams have experience integrating a variety of sorter technology solutions with our OEM partners, including cross-belt sorters, tilt tray sorters, shoe sorters and pop-up sorters.
The Now Management Studio software suite enables operators in your facility to manage what is happening in your automated system in real-time. Our WCS software integrates with sorting devices to provide data collection, analysis, and performance monitoring of your system. This ensures an accurate and smooth transition of your product from receiving lanes to shipping docks.
The software is web-based, which only requires deploy to one centralized machine. All other client computers on the network can access the software through any modern web browser including Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari. Now Management Studio is also mobile friendly, it employs a responsive design which allows user to work from desktops, tablets, or mobile phones. This allows you to access your software from anywhere in your facility, or your head office.
Our system wide dashboard displays real-time key performance indicators which help you keep your system up and running at peak performance level. Our dashboard also highlights other important items such as upcoming or critical predictive maintenance, hardware health monitoring and system alarm annunciations.
If you should you need to communicate in a noisy environment, just use Now Management Studio's build in chat functionality. The chat feature saves you time from walking across the facility by communicating to your staff through the web browser. When it comes time to find specific product in your facility, use our transaction search screen to track inventory movement or check out automated reports to see process efficiency for the day. Whatever you may wish to accomplish in your warehouse, Now Management Studio can make it a reality.