A WMS runs the floor: inbound, locations, barcodes, PDA picking and counts. Purchase and sales orders can live in ERP. If the system only stores a total, pickers are still walking the aisle by memory.
ERP can create the order. WMS answers which pallet, whether you may split it, and which expiry leaves first. Manufacturers usually come because line-side stock is chaos or finished goods ship short. Commerce warehouses come when pick-by-order no longer keeps up and they need waves.
ASN/appointment, receive, optional QC, putaway. Overages, shortages and damage are first-class, not comments in a chat.
Pick tasks from a ship order, then pack check. Block short stock, short shelf life or missed lots before the truck leaves.
A quantity is location + lot + status (available, hold, QC). Moves and splits are stock transactions, not silent edits.
Warehouse → zone → bin IDs, plus item, bin and tote labels. Without location master data, PDA hardware is theatre.
Receive, putaway, pick, count. The device is a worker UI, not a website squeezed onto a scan gun.
WMS owns bins and lots. MES owns the work order. Agree item codes, lot numbers and posting time before anyone maps fields “by guess” into SAP or another ERP.
Driven by warehouse type (floor vs racking), terminals (PC/PDA), waves and expiry, and how many ERP/MES/SAP interfaces you need. We stabilize receive-putaway-pick-ship before we add strategy modules.
Typical flows: finished-goods receipt, line-side replenishment, returns to stock. WMS owns locations and lots; MES owns the order and the step. Codes and posting time are agreed first.
If finding goods is slow, counts never match, or order volume outgrew Excel, yes. A one-person room can start with a lighter stock tool and grow.
Yes, through the interfaces or staging tables your SAP team already allows for material documents, receipts and shipments. Field mapping is done with their consultant, not guessed.
Layout, PC vs PDA, waves and shelf life, plus ERP/MES/SAP interface count. We phase: stabilize the physical flow, then add allocation strategy.
We use this only to scope the project. No marketing list.