Activity captured is activity billed

Capable, but only partly implemented

Core warehouse systems are capable products. They are also expensive to change. At this operator the WMS handled the standard flows well and the non-standard ones not at all: value-added services, client-specific handling, rework, the activity that makes a 3PL's margin.

Every change carried a vendor backlog. So the floor did what floors do: spreadsheets and paper ran alongside the system to fill the gaps. The work got done. It was not always captured, and what is not captured is not billed.

What we built

An augmentation layer on top of the core WMS. The system of record stays where it is; the new screens and workflows sit above it and write back to it.

Custom screens for the work the configuration misses. Value-added services, client-specific steps and exceptions get their own screens, designed with the people who do the work.

Workflows built in days. Because the layer is ours, not the vendor's, a new workflow is days of work rather than a change request in a queue.

Captured activity flows to billing. Every unit of work recorded in the layer is available to the billing engine, against the client's rate card.

What it produced

Activity that was invisible is now captured, and activity captured is activity billed. The parallel spreadsheets went away for the augmented workflows, because the system finally did what the floor needed.

The operator kept its WMS and its investment in it. What changed is that the system now bends to the operation, instead of the operation bending to the system.