The mid-market businesses are the backbone of most economies.
According to Moore Global’s Thrive Index, over two-thirds of these businesses have recorded significant revenue gains, and three out of four have benefited from digital transformation.
While there has been an increased interest in digital transformation, many mid-market companies continue to struggle with it.
According to a 2024 Deloitte report, 63% of mid-market supply chain leaders continue to struggle with their systems because they are not integrated. 58% of them face issues with agility due to a lack of real-time insights.
Most mid-market companies still use manual or fragmented legacy systems and rely too much on spreadsheets and manual interventions. They are left with data silos that are ill-equipped to manage the modern supply chain operations.
Mid-market companies can benefit with an AI-powered platform that can unify fragmented systems and data sources, including transportation management systems (TMS) and warehouse management systems (WMS), into a single, unified layer to provide end-to-end visibility of the supply chain.
Let’s understand this further.
How To Unify TMS and WMS With Other Tools
Although mid-market companies may use various tools to manage the supply chain, some of them don’t have a dedicated TMS or WMS to manage the transportation and warehouse operations. Most operations are managed through spreadsheets, legacy ERP systems, and other tools that operate in silos. That’s why we advise companies against a complete overhaul. It can be complex. We recommend a planned crawl-walk-run approach, where we integrate the company’s existing tools and data sources with our AI-powered TMS and WMS platform. Here’s a roadmap to get started.
Crawl Stage
In the crawl stage, assess the current systems and processes to plan and deploy the CSCS AI-powered TMS and WMS platform, which integrates with existing systems. We provide real-time API, EDI, JSON, and flat-file connectors to streamline data flow. We also ensure real-time interoperability across the company’s systems and our TMS+WMS platform to improve supply chain visibility and manage exceptions at all stages. It can help them reduce manual work and eliminate errors caused by spreadsheets and siloed tools.
Walk Stage
Once integration is complete, companies need real-time insights to make data-driven decisions. CSCS ingests inventory and carrier data from accounting software and carrier APIs into the platform to track real-time inventory levels, shipments, delivery times, and capacity. Connecting with IoT devices to monitor the temperature fluctuations to manage the cold chain efficiently, are just a few of the increase in visibility use cases at the operational level where mid-market companies benefit. This helps the company manage delays, improve order accuracy, and deliver the products on time to customers.
Run Stage
The final stage is the Run stage, where companies can manage advanced workflows, such as dynamic route and load optimization, dock scheduling, and resource allocation. For example, companies can use TMS to get access to real-time data on order completion or carrier capacity to adjust routes. Similarly, TMS can schedule dock schedules and enable WMS to plan inbound and outbound transport schedules. It can also auto-adjust labor schedules based on the volume of orders. The Run stage focuses on transitioning from reactive to proactive logistics planning and ensuring seamless supply chain management.
What Proof Points Should Companies Track?
To ensure the WMS-TMS integration is successful, companies must track the following KPIs regularly. This will enable the companies to identify the potential bottlenecks and address them to improve performance outcomes.
The Order-to-Dock Cycle Time
It measures the time taken between releasing an order and loading it onto the dock. The WMS-TMS integration can be deemed successful if there is a decrease in idle time on the dock and the order-to-dock cycle time.
Pick Productivity
It measures the units or lines picked per hour. An increase in picking indicates that the WMS-TMS integration is working successfully. It reveals if the integrated workflows are eliminating misalignments between the warehouse and the transportation processes.
Exception Rate
It measures the percentage of orders with disruptions such as carrier delays and misaligned dock schedules. A decrease in error rates indicates that the integrated system is working seamlessly and preventing errors and delays successfully.
Forecast fidelity
It measures the accuracy of load information sent from the WMS to the TMS vs. the actual shipment. A higher fidelity indicates that WMS-TMS integration is delivering cost savings.
Conclusion
As mid-market companies grow, the need for a robust supply chain has become non-negotiable. By integrating fragmented legacy systems with AI-powered TMS and WMS, companies can gain more real-time insights and improve supply chain efficiency.
At CSCS, we help connect our intelligent TMS and WMS platform with the company’s existing systems like ERPs. We provide pre-built connectors that eliminate fragmented systems and data silos, offering a single-pane view from PO to delivery.
Contact us to integrate the disparate systems seamlessly.