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# Warehouse Management System of the future!

By Diana Dawa, DLA Distribution Public Affairs

                NEW CUMBERLAND, Pa.  –              
DLA Distribution’s new Warehouse Management System will simplify storage and distribution processes to better align with industry standards, creating a single warehousing system for all of DLA. The new system will not only take DLA Distribution into the 21st century, but the anticipated cost savings are over 20 million.

 

According to Paul Abel, DLA Distribution J4 director, the current Distribution Standard System is a great system in that they have programmed every customer request and ease of use upgrade possible, but it’s utilizing a very old programming language called Common Business Oriented Language.  

 

“COBAL was used and built for transactional based business mainframes that are now outdated, so we are moving WMS to the Cloud. We recognize this update as a strategic move toward the future for DLA Distribution,” said Abel.  

 

DLA’s Enterprise Business System, a supply system, is Systems Applications and Products based and the new WMS will also be SAP based. This will align two of DLA’s major operating systems on a single software platform, reducing complexities and streamlining processes. 

 

Finally, said Abel, “We are keeping this deployment to commercial-out-of-the-box as much as possible as DLA moves to a software as a service model, which means we will buy the service and future updates from the vendor, similar to when smart phone companies push out updates.”

 

Through several future releases, WMS will continue to expand capabilities and processes for DLA, improving logistics and information technology interoperability. In coordination with system developers and aligned with the progression of WMS, DLA headquarters teams continue to develop and refine training packages, system updates, and standard operating procedures. 

 

This new commercial-off-the-shelf Warehouse Management System – the first of its kind within the network – is being piloted at DLA Distribution Corpus Christi, Texas.  

 

According to Jeremy M. Beckwith, DDCT deputy commander, teams from DLA Headquarters, DLA Distribution Headquarters and DLA Distribution Corpus Christi integrated to define system requirements and to develop an execution plan for implementation.  

 

“Our analysts ran complex queries to identify over 1,900 NSNs for the pilot to maximize workload volume for a viable pilot, while mitigating risks to specialized programs and our customers. A three-person storage branch special team then sterilized over 2,500 locations in less than a month; segregating a production environment for WMS material, validating inventory accuracy and enforcing location identification program precision as we prepared for go-live,” said Beckwith. 

 

After just five months of development, testing, and training, WMS when live on June 11, 2018, introducing a system of record capability to receipt, store and issue the specific population of material. 

 

“In the four months since going live, a small team of highly talented DDCT members processed over 2,500 receipts and issues, executed daily process audits, cleared transactional errors and built storage locations in the WMS system to support 4,116 locations containing 577,259 units of DLA owned material by the end of calendar year 2018,” said Beckwith. 

 

Most impressive was the dynamic interaction with the DDCT workforce, who, Beckwith said, embraced the challenge and injected their creativity into deliberate problem solving technics. They established direct professional relationships with SAP developers and DLA subject matter experts to develop and refine training packages, system updates and standard operating procedures.  

 

“Throughout the implementation process, the workforce at DLA Distribution Corpus Christi continues to test and provide quality control from an end user’s perspective to ensure this new warehouse management system meets the requirements that DLA expects, and that our Warfighters deserve,” Beckwith stated, adding, “We feel fortunate to lead this initiative down here in Corpus Christi, and to exploit the new system to its maximum potential to revolutionize the distribution and disposition process.”

 

“We are headed toward completion of the pilot by the end of this fiscal year. Once all capabilities that are needed to run a distribution center are in the WMS, we will have a 90 day period to assess that everything is in the software, working correctly, and that the system is auditable. It is imperative that we get it right at DDCT before we move to another site,” said Abel.  

 

While the WMS Refresh is currently under pilot at DDCT, still, there are a lot of Distribution folks working the project simultaneously at the Distribution headquarters J4. The team is currently working on a deployment plan with the goal of getting this out to all the sites by the end of fiscal year 2021.

 

“We are moving forward and seeing success,” said Abel.

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