Linking warehouse complexity to planning and control structure

Warehousing is becoming more and more a critical activity in the supply chain to outperform competitors on customer service, lead times, and costs. However, if warehousing is to be a source of competitive advantage, then the implementation of a warehouse management information system (WMS) is a necessary condition to achieve efficiently the high performance of warehousing operations required in today's marketplace. A major practical question is then whether a given warehouse should implement a standard or a tailor-made WMS. A standard WMS offers many advantages. On the other hand, a standard WMS remains largely making compromises between the way a warehouse wants to work and the way the system allows the warehouse to work. In certain environments, such compromises might seriously degrade warehouse performance. An exploratory field study of warehouses with recently implemented WMSs was conducted to first understand the empirical reality and then build up a theory linking the constructs warehouse complexity and warehouse planning and control structure.