Integration and Technical Services In Ontario

Wills Transfer, 3PL Integration and Technical Services for businesses from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Western Quebec, and the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.

No two 3PL customers are alike. The needs of the customer and the markets they serve significantly impact the technology, people, and processes of the 3PL relationship. At Wills Transfer, we are keenly aware of these needs and have invested heavily in the right software solution to meet our customer’s needs.

One ongoing investment is the consistent upgrading of our Integration and Technical Services.

Wills Transfer, Integration, and Technical Services Explained

Wills Warehouse Management System (WMS)

A warehouse management system (WMS) is a software solution that offers visibility into a business’s entire inventory and manages supply chain fulfillment operations from the distribution center to the store shelf.

It is designed to support the needs of an entire global supply chain, including distribution, manufacturing, asset-intensive, and service businesses.

At Wills Transfer, we use Excalibur, which is built on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and is a feature-rich Warehouse Management Solution (WMS) that allows flexibility and performance for each of our warehouses in Eastern Ontario.

Excalibur provides all our stakeholders with complete visibility across the entire operation, including a robust customer web portal with real-time inventory and job status information.

Excalibur is hosted in Wills Transfer’s own Microsoft Azure Cloud environment, where security and performance are top of mind. Using this virtual private network, we connect our Warehouse staff, CSRs, and Managers to Excalibur.

Some of the features of our WMS, Excalibur include the following:

• Enterprise-level 3PL WMS for inventory management, shipping & receiving, reporting and billing.
• No limit to the number of warehouses, users, and transactions.
• Integration capabilities with ERP systems, shopping carts, and carrier systems.
• Customization flexibility for user and customer requirements.
• Includes inventory management, billing & invoicing, reporting, and physical counts.
• Client portal (Weblink) for our customers to have easy access to their inventory and transaction visibility in real-time.
• Electronic Order Fulfillment for high volume orders, sorting, batching, and wave picking.
• Kitting and Light Assembly allow for BOM assembly, specialized inventory control, and order processing.
• Carrier Interface allows for integration with 3rd party carrier systems including FedEx and UPS.
• Wireless Barcode Scanning that enables tablet-style barcode scanner functionality.
• EDI and other Integration Tools such as XML, CSV, FTP, Email, and Web Services.

Barcode Scanning

A barcode reader (or barcode scanner) is an optical scanner that can read printed barcodes, decode the data contained in the barcode, and send the data to a computer. It consists of a light source, a lens, and a light sensor translating optical impulses into electrical signals.

RF Scanners are a must-have device for any warehouse.

RF Scanners have marked a turning point in the logistics management of any organization. Practically all facilities rely on these devices to carry out their logistics operations, instantly, and without errors.

The RF Scanner is a handheld terminal used to read barcodes, QR codes, and RFID tags. These essential devices transmit the data they collect to the WMS reliably, accurately, and in real-time. Picking is probably the operation that benefits most from the help of an RF Scanner. But these “Swiss Army knives” of logistics are capable of much more.

Which operations can RF Scanners optimize?

RF Scanners can have applications in many logistics operations, among which include:

• Goods receipt. Operators inspect the pallets they’ve received in the docking area. The WMS verifies that the pallet received is the same as the one previously entered into the system, thereby ensuring error-free goods receipts.
• Location management. Where should I put the goods that have arrived? Thanks to the RF Scanners and instructions from the WMS, all operators need to do to carry out efficient slotting is to follow the instructions that appear on the screen.
• Picking. This is probably the operation that benefits most from the help of an RF Scanner. Why? Because errors in order processing are drastically reduced with these devices. In fact, advanced models reflect product SKU, location, number of units to pick, and the box in which each order is to be packed.
• Order dispatch. The RF Scanner transmits orders to the WMS, respecting the sequencing and organizing them according to destination or transportation route. When everything is prepared and waiting, order dispatch is sped up.

Additionally, RF Scanners perform other operations such as inventory replenishment, returns management, stock control, and so on.

Regardless of the facility’s level of automation, practically all warehouses have RF Scanners. Without them, operators would have to resort to pen and paper, entailing more mistakes, more returns, and ultimately, disappointed customers.

Wills Transfer has invested heavily in the last few years in technology and hardware that make the job of processing our customer’s items into and out of our warehouses quicker and more efficient through the use of barcode scanning.

Workplace Integrated Management System (WIMS)

WIMS is our solution to allow warehouse staff to connect directly with Excalibur our WMS using a variety of devices such as Glacier computers on the forklift and handheld Zebra RF Guns. Functions of WIMS include the following:

• Receiving, shipping, and inventory management with Telnet emulation on handheld scanning devices.
• Functions include user login, receiving, manual put-away, picking shipping, moves, and cycle counts. “License plate” or “Parent License Plate” options for receiving guided put-away, guided picking, shipping moves, cycle counts, and time clock functions.
• Other functions include paperless operations such as directed put-away, wave picking, workflow redirection, workload balancing logic, etc.

Our warehouse staff is outfitted with Zebra MC9300 Android RF Guns to allow them to do picks and put away directly into our WMS, Excalibur.

Integration

Wills Transfer is a 3PL. Part of being a 3PL is being able to be flexible to accommodate a very wide range of customer needs from a diverse group of industries. Wills can utilize the many integration features of Excalibur WMS to integrate with our customers’ systems and order entry modules. With these integrations, we can automate the following:

• Receipts
• Shipments
• Item Master Changes
• Inventory Adjustments
• Inventory Reconciliations
• E-Commerce Orders
• Pick and Pack Orders
• Kitting Orders
• Pick Ticket Cancellations and more.

We also have an in-house development team that can build custom reports, develop KPI dashboards, and build custom integration functions that would accommodate even the most complex 3PL Customer.

Proven Customer Integration

Our WMS, Excalibur can integrate with your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) such as Oracle, SAP, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SAGE, Acumatica, and EPICOR. Using this type of integration benefits you as the customer by exchanging critical data from your ERP to ours thus reducing human error when entering data manually.

So, if you are looking for 3PL Integration and Technical Services for businesses from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Western Quebec, and the U.S. Eastern Seaboard or you need more information about Integration and Technical Services, call Wills Transfer at 613-704-7549 or contact us here.