UPS (NYSE:UPS) Supply Chain Solutions today announced warehousenetwork technology designed to make distribution centers smarterand more efficient. The new Warehouse Execution System (WES) willenable faster order intake and fulfillment to ensure thatcustomers, especially those with fluctuating order patterns,receive their products on time.
UPS and supply chain solutions provider Softeon created the WESwhich allows UPS to define specific customer requirements to ensurehighest priority orders are worked first without manualintervention, resulting in more than 50% productivity gains forsome customers.
“WES enables UPS to better leverage our global warehouse networkand integrated technology to help our customers reduce capital,improve service and speed to end customers,” said Philippe Gilbert,president of Supply Chain Solutions. “We also can create morecustom and turnkey outsourced fulfillment services to meet ourcustomers’ unique supply chain needs.”
To meet the growing and ever-changing demands, supply chainoperators are leveraging more sophisticated and complex warehousetechnologies that can handle higher volumes with greaterfluctuations. The WES’s real-time monitoring of capacity,fulfillment requirements, backlogs, and labor status allows UPS toidentify and resolve potential disruptions before they arise. Withcompanies experiencing labor scarcity and ecommerce-driven pressurefor faster fulfillment, UPS is making outsourced fulfillment acompetitive advantage for customers.
The WES implementation is part of UPS’s ongoing efforts tomodernize warehouse operations by leveraging autonomouscapabilities. UPS is deploying Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) inseveral of its facilities and piloting AMR from Locus Robotics,which receive instruction from the WES to pick up and transportgoods for order consolidation and pack out by UPS employees. Thesystem dynamically dispatches order fulfillment activity andcontinuously balances inventory flow which allows UPS engineers andoperators to efficiently synchronize the use of labor andequipment.
Other investments in warehouse technology include autonomousguided vehicles, automated sorting systems, and other automationtechnologies. UPS also plans to launch a new visibility andreporting platform that will enable customers to monitor and trackend-to-end supply chain activity and performance, fromtransportation to warehouse inventory to order volume all in oneplatform.
“Our investments in technology support operational improvementsthat enable UPS to improve service for our customers,” saidGilbert. “The WES, AMRs, and other technologies allow us to createmore customized solutions that better serve customers and improvethe end-user experience.”
To learn more about UPS Supply Chain Solutions, visit
