A modern WMS can significantly increase warehouse efficiency, reduce errors and bring order to logistics processes. But the choice of technology alone doesn’t decide whether a project succeeds. Why can companies implementing solutions with similar capabilities achieve very different results?
A WMS implementation is often seen as an IT project. In practice, however, it is above all an organisational project that affects how the warehouse works, how departments communicate and how the whole company operates day to day. Choosing the right solution doesn’t guarantee success on its own. Many factors decide the outcome – from the quality of the pre-implementation analysis, through team commitment, to the organisation’s readiness for change.
When does a company really need a WMS? What mistakes are most often made before the project even starts? And what, in practice, distinguishes successful implementations from those that fail to deliver the expected results? We discuss this with Jakub Wajda, board member of EX7 and coordinator of XWMS implementations, and Krzysztof Wieczorek – an independent consultant specialising in designing and optimising logistics and warehouse processes, and in selecting and supporting the implementation of ERP, WMS and OMS systems. Although they look at implementation projects from different perspectives – that of a WMS vendor and that of an independent consultant – they agree on one thing: the success of an implementation depends on much more than choosing the right technology.
Jakub Wajda: For several years we’ve seen companies’ expectations of logistics change significantly. Ten or fifteen years ago the warehouse was seen mainly as an operational back office. Today it is increasingly becoming a key element in building a competitive advantage, affecting the quality of customer service, the speed of order fulfilment and the ability to grow the business. Do you see this change from your perspective too?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: Definitely, although the process is slower than many of us expected. Slowly – though not as fast as one might hope – companies are professionalising their operational back office. There are still small and medium-sized organisations where paper rules and only the two longest-serving warehouse workers know what is stored where. That model worked for years, but today it is increasingly proving insufficient. Fortunately, this is steadily changing. One of the factors that clearly accelerated the change was the e-commerce boom during the pandemic and the restrictions on traditional retail. But the pandemic meant more than rapid growth in online sales. Companies also had to introduce remote working tools and solutions supporting day-to-day operations that made it possible to onboard new or temporary staff faster. You could even say, somewhat ironically, that COVID did more for the digitalisation of Polish companies than many years of educational activities and marketing campaigns by back-office software vendors.
Today, in my experience, most companies that want to grow and stay competitive are investing heavily in solutions supporting warehouse processes as well as sales and operations management. The question is no longer whether such systems are worth implementing, but when and how best to do it.
Jakub Wajda: That matches our experience very well. We are less and less often approached by companies that simply want to buy a WMS. Much more often we talk to businesses that have reached a certain stage of development and noticed that their existing processes can no longer keep up with the scale of operations. In practice, that’s when the question arises whether the organisation really needs a WMS yet – and if so, when is the right time to start such a project. What do you tell clients facing this dilemma?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: I always say that the question “whether?” is more important than “when?”. Not every company needs a WMS. If a business has 30–50 SKUs and doesn’t need to track batches or expiry dates, it can generate very high turnover without a dedicated warehouse system. In that case, an efficient ERP system for inventory and sales management and a good OMS for order handling – with even a simple packing module and integrations with sales platforms – are far more important.
The situation changes when there are hundreds or thousands of SKUs, batches and expiry dates need to be managed, and the warehouse becomes a large, multi-location operation with high-bay storage. In that situation, a company without a WMS very quickly becomes hostage to its employees’ knowledge. They carry the warehouse map in their heads, onboarding a new person takes months, and the company has no tools to limit errors in stock management or order picking.
For me, a very clear warning sign is when the shipping error rate starts being measured in per cent rather than per mille. If onboarding a new employee takes longer than two weeks, and the holidays of a few of the most experienced warehouse staff cause day-to-day operations to collapse, then it’s the last call to implement a WMS.
Jakub Wajda: That’s a very interesting observation, because at first meetings with clients we often hear that a WMS should “put the warehouse in order”. Many business owners assume that the system itself will solve organisational problems. Our experience, however, is that even the best software can’t replace well-designed processes. Do you agree?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: Absolutely. It’s one of the most common myths about WMS implementations. Many companies expect a new system to put the warehouse in order and solve all organisational problems. The reality is quite different.
A WMS won’t fix badly designed processes or clean up data that was inconsistent from the start. If an organisation doesn’t have tidy product records, properly labelled locations or clearly defined warehouse rules, implementing a WMS won’t solve the problems – it will often expose them. And paradoxically, that’s good news, because only then does the company see where its biggest weaknesses really are.
That’s why the pre-implementation analysis is one of the most important stages of the entire project. That’s when processes are identified, exceptions are captured and the way the warehouse works is put in order. It’s equally important to make sure that both the client and the system vendor understand the individual processes and the terms used in the organisation in the same way. A well-conducted analysis avoids the situation where, after go-live, it turns out that each side understood the same process differently. Such misunderstandings are one of the most common causes of problems during implementations.
Jakub Wajda: Over the years you’ve taken part in many logistics projects – both as a consultant supporting clients and as someone helping to prepare the organisation for implementation. With hindsight, it’s probably fair to say that most problems don’t arise on go-live day, but much earlier. What most often decides whether one implementation succeeds while another runs into serious difficulties?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: In my experience, when a WMS implementation fails, the reasons very rarely lie in the system itself. The problem usually appears much earlier – before the actual project even starts.
The first mistake can be the choice of vendor itself. If the decision is based only on price, personal connections or recommendations from people who don’t know the specifics of the industry, it’s hard to expect a good result. The vendor should match not only the company’s current needs, but also its growth plans.
The second area is the pre-implementation analysis. Today, attempts to implement larger systems with no analysis at all are rare, but analyses that are too superficial or disorganised still happen. And this is the stage where the foundation of the whole project is laid.
Another issue is the team on the client’s side. A WMS implementation can’t be a project handed over to “Jola from accounting” or “Waldek who does the computers”, who are supposed to handle it in between their daily duties. You need a team with knowledge of warehouse processes and enough time to really commit to the project.
And we mustn’t forget about testing. Some companies want to go live as soon as possible and cut the testing stage short. This often means that problems only surface during normal warehouse operations.
So a successful implementation isn’t just about choosing the right system. It’s also about the right partner, a thorough analysis, a competent team on the client’s side, time set aside for testing and preparing the organisation for change.
Jakub Wajda: You’ve mentioned the pre-implementation analysis several times. In our experience, it’s a stage that clients often underestimate, yet it has a huge impact on the course of the whole project. What most often happens at this stage? Which mistakes are worth avoiding?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: I most often come across two problems. The first is analysis that is too general. If processes are described only in broad terms, without considering exceptions or non-standard situations, it quickly turns out after go-live that new needs keep appearing that nobody had foreseen. That means extra work, a longer project and often higher costs.
The second problem is… semantics. It sounds trivial, but in practice it can cause many misunderstandings. The same term can mean something completely different to an ERP specialist, something else to the person implementing the WMS, and something else again to the client. A good example is the word “order”. For some it means only a sales order, for others a purchase order as well. If such terms aren’t clarified at the start of the project, it’s very easy to make wrong assumptions later.
That’s why I always encourage creating a shared glossary of the key terms during the analysis. It’s a small effort that prevents many problems later in the implementation. At the same time, we have to remember that the system vendor is largely responsible for the quality of the analysis. It is the vendor who should ask the right questions, probe for exceptions, verify how the warehouse works and make sure they understand the client’s processes. Provided, of course, that the client gives reliable information. If during the analysis we hear that the company doesn’t ship abroad, all products have barcodes and the number of orders is similar every day – and after go-live reality turns out to be completely different – it’s hard to expect the project to run without complications.
Jakub Wajda: We’ve talked about the pre-implementation analysis, processes and choosing the right solution. But in our experience even the best-prepared project can run into difficulties if the company isn’t ready for change. After all, in practice a WMS implementation means changing the warehouse’s day-to-day work and often the habits of the entire team. Interestingly, the breakthrough isn’t the go-live itself, but the moment when employees start trusting the system and using it in line with the designed processes. How big a role does the commitment of warehouse staff and management play in the success of the project?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: A huge one. In practice, a WMS implementation is first and foremost an organisational change project, and only then an IT project. Natural resistance from employees is completely normal. Every change raises concerns – about new duties, having to learn new tools, or abandoning habits developed over years. But if the team understands the purpose of the implementation and is properly prepared, these concerns usually pass quickly. A much bigger problem is resistance at the middle-management level. That’s when you can encounter actions that delay the project and, in extreme cases, even attempts to sabotage the whole process. That’s why it’s worth involving the people who will work with the system every day from the very beginning. A WMS implementation can’t be imposed on the organisation. Employees need to understand why the way the warehouse works is changing and what benefits this will bring both to the company and to themselves.
Jakub Wajda: Throughout our conversation we’ve stressed that the success of an implementation starts long before go-live. We had the opportunity to observe a project together that shows this very well. I mean the XWMS implementation at Interpneu, where you acted as an independent consultant supporting the client. How did that cooperation begin?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: I met Interpneu about three years ago precisely to assess its readiness to implement a WMS. We started with a process audit covering not only warehouse operations, but also purchasing and sales processes and how they connect with the enova365 ERP system. After the analysis we concluded that the organisation wasn’t ready for a WMS yet. And that was a very good decision. Instead of starting the project too early, over the following months we focused on organising and refining the processes run in enova365, carried out several development tasks in the ERP area and introduced minor organisational changes in the warehouse. Only about a year later did we decide, together with Interpneu’s management board, that the organisation had reached the right level of maturity and was ready for the next stage of digital development – implementing a dedicated WMS.
Jakub Wajda: That’s a very interesting example, because it shows that sometimes the best decision isn’t to start the implementation immediately, but to prepare the organisation first. Once you decided the company was ready for the next stage of digitalisation, what guided your choice of WMS and vendor?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: When we made the decision to implement, we already knew very precisely what we expected from the new solution. Interpneu runs intensive wholesale with a very diverse customer base – from large vehicle fleets to small tyre-fitting workshops. At the same time, it serves e-commerce partners in a dropshipping model. So it was clear that we needed a fully-fledged WMS. We rejected “OMS with location handling” solutions straight away, because they wouldn’t be able to meet the requirements of such a business model. Two criteria were key when choosing the vendor. First – experience in the tyre industry. Second – a proven integration with the enova365 ERP system. We wanted a partner who would not only deliver the right tool, but also be able to run the whole project efficiently. EX7 met both conditions, so choosing it was a natural consequence of the requirements we had defined earlier.
Jakub Wajda: What role did the XWMS–enova365 integration play in this project, and what did it mean for the warehouse’s daily work?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: The most visible effect was that paper simply disappeared from the warehouse. Until then enova365, as an ERP system, supported some warehouse operations, but all the printouts and default locations were only a stopgap. After the implementation, the roles of the two systems were clearly separated. enova365 does what it was built for – purchasing, sales, finance and pricing – while the WMS supports all operations carried out in the warehouse. A proper integration also means automating many processes. A purchase invoice appears in the WMS as a delivery document to be received, sales orders are visible in the warehouse as picking orders, and internal warehouse operations remain invisible to the ERP because they don’t affect accounting or tax matters. In addition, office staff no longer have to print shipping labels, and warehouse staff no longer have to match them to shipments afterwards. Today the label is printed automatically at the end of the packing process, and the shipment number is returned to the ERP via the API.
Jakub Wajda: Looking at this project from the perspective of several years of experience and many implementations, what makes you consider it one of the most successful implementations of your career?
Krzysztof Wieczorek: The process was carried out practically by the book – from the pre-implementation analysis and preparing process maps, through system configuration and testing, to go-live. The smooth integration of enova365 with XWMS played a big part. Just a few days after go-live we could talk about the system stabilisation phase. But the commitment of everyone involved was just as important. Interpneu, the partner responsible for developing enova365 and the EX7 team all responded very quickly to emerging needs. Even functions we hadn’t foreseen at the analysis stage were implemented efficiently after go-live. That’s why I believe the WMS implementation at Interpneu and its integration with enova365 is one of the best implementations I’ve seen in my career. It was the result not only of mature IT solutions, but above all of the commitment of everyone involved.
Jakub Wajda: Krzysztof, thank you very much for the conversation. Although I’ve been implementing XWMS for years and see every day the challenges companies face, many of the topics we discussed today show how valuable it is to look at a project from the perspective of an independent consultant as well.
I think today’s conversation shows that the success of a WMS implementation comes from combining the right technology, well-designed processes, a thorough pre-implementation analysis and the organisation’s readiness for change. Only by combining these elements can you make full use of the system and achieve your business goals.
I have the feeling, though, that this is only the beginning of our conversation. We didn’t have time to talk about how the market is changing, what new challenges logistics faces today and what companies expect from modern WMS systems. I hope we’ll have the chance to come back to these topics.
Thank you for the conversation.
Krzysztof Wieczorek: Thank you too – I’ll be happy to continue the conversation.
