20 years of logistics expertise distilled into one Excel Template:

166 Requirements For Evaluating Warehouse Management Software (WMS)

82 Functional + 84 Non-Functional WMS Requirements, directly connected with the warehouse processes in large and medium business. Adapt for your needs, evaluate vendors & more. Novacura – Trusted by 220+ Companies.

Warehouse Management System (WMS) is a key system for industries like: manufacturing companies, distributors, transportation companies, e-commerce resellers, and retailers. Choosing the right WMS system is a critical task for such companies. But companies usually don’t have experience in that area, because they don’t do that frequently…  

To help companies solve the problem, based on our nearly 20 years of experience in the logistics area, we prepared a template called “Requirements table for WMS system”. 

WHAT WILL YOU FIND IN THE “REQUIREMENTS TABLE” 

 

Functional requirements 

The main part of the Requirements table collects 82 functional requirements directly connected with the warehouse processes. The file covers the following areas: 

  • Inventory Configuration / Evidence of goods 
  • Basic inventory operations 
  • Internal logistics / production support 
  • Suppliers / Delivery management 
  • Delivery quality control 
  • Shipment & Transportation to the recipient 
  • Packaging management 
  • Returnable / Reusable Packaging management 
  • Working with packages / Handling units 
  • Scrap management 
  • Supportive features (compliance, crew management) 

Not only functional requirements

The proposed requirements table doesn’t only focus on business requirements directly related to the warehouse processes. It also covers 84 non-functional requirements such as:

  • Technical / technologies
  • Integration
  • IT Administration / users administration
  • Vendor related
  • Commercial terms & Licensing model
  • Project organization

Note: Keep in mind that these requirements are equally important as functional ones when implementing an IT system!

How can you use it

The downloadable “Requirements table for WMS system” file is available as a MS Excel file. Therefore, it is open for editing!

  • You can adjust it for your business: add your own requirements, and remove those that are not applicable to your business
  • You can spread out the file with various people in various departments to add / review requirements from their areas. Groups of requirements allow you to assign other people to particular groups (eg. IT Division to Technical requirements, Procurement department to Commercial requirements).
  • You can ask potential vendors to fill in the “Requirements table” and ask them to report which requirements are covered by their solution
  • You can use it to evaluate vendors – simply evaluate how a particular vendor meets all approved requirement and count the total scores based on this evaluation / weight of each requirement

How will you benefit

Here is why we believe you will benefit a lot from our Requirements table:

  • Shorten the requirements gathering process – many WMS requirements are common for many businesses. Don’t create them from scratch, utilize what has already been prepared
  • Avoid gaps in your requirements – treat our table as a checklist – it will help you avoid gaps in your future system specification
  • Be Inspired – there are features and technologies that might be new for you. Learn what you can expect from modern WMS systems
  • Think upfront about not obvious requirements – check non-functional requirements and define your expectations regarding the vendor company, implementation project, or licensing model
  • Learn proven methodology – the Requirements Table is carefully prepared, all requirements are well categorized and prioritized
  • Lower the WMS purchase costs – by using the proposed MoSCoW methodology, you can prioritize all requirements and select only those that create real value for your company
  • Objectively select & compare vendors – with the proposed well-structured table, you can evaluate each requirement fulfillment for each vendor and objectively calculate the total score based on weights assigned to each requirement. All vendors should use the same table, so you will really compare “apple to apple”!

Why you should trust us

In Novacura, we work closely with Logistics and Manufacturing companies. Over the last 20 years, we delivered our software solutions to over 220 customers!

The Requirements Table for WMS System has been prepared by our experts who work closely with warehouse & logistics processes and have a huge experience in implementing IT Systems. The collected requirements are based on real requirements that we have heard from real companies.

As a software company, we work with software implementation projects a lot! It gives us the creditability to include project management requirements in the WMS requirements table.

 

Table Of Contents:

In the brackets, You can see the number of requirements in each group:

  • GROUP 1: Functional requirements / Business features (82)
  • GROUP 2: Capabilities – User experience / efficiency (20)
  • GROUP 3: Capabilities – task management & supervision (6)
  • GROUP 4: Integration – Business Requirements (6)
  • GROUP 5: Integration – Technical requirements (4)
  • GROUP 6: Flexibility / Customization (10)
  • GROUP 7: Technology / Installations / Security (9)
  • GROUP 8: System & User Administration (5)
  • GROUP 9: Commercial terms (10)
  • GROUP 10: Project plan / methodology (8)
  • GROUP 11: Vendor evaluation (6)
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