WMS stands for Warehouse Management System.

Warehouse Management System, or a WMS, is a key part of the supply chain and primarily aims to control the movement and storage of materials within a warehouse and process the associated transactions, including shipping, receiving, putaway and picking. The systems also direct and optimize stock putaway based on real-time information about the status of bin utilization.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Solutions like SAP Business One and Microsoft Dynamics NAV are perfectly suited to Warehouse Management Solutions, unlike some common Accounting System packages that don’t even handle multi warehouse or barcode scanning, which are key elements of an effective Warehouse Management System.

Warehouse management systems often utilize Auto ID Data Capture technology, such as barcode scanners, mobile computers, wireless LANs and potentially RFID to efficiently monitor the flow of products. Once data has been collected, there is either a batch synchronization with, or a real-time wireless transmission to a central database. The database can then provide useful reports about the status of goods in the warehouse.

The objective of a warehouse management system is to provide an application to automatically receive inventory, process orders, and handle returns.

Warehouse management systems can be stand alone systems, or modules of an Enterprise Resource Planning system or supply chain execution suite.

The primary purpose of a WMS is to control the movement and storage of materials within a warehouse – you might even describe it as the legs at the end-of-the line which automates the store, traffic and shipping management.