Warehouse system projects succeed or fail on the floor. This checklist covers what to settle before, during and after implementation.
Do you need a WMS?
- Pickers need directed put-away and pick paths because stock is spread across many locations.
- You control lots, serials or expiry dates, or need recall traceability.
- Several people pick the same order, or pick errors cost you customers or chargebacks.
- Receiving is a bottleneck, or put-away is done from memory.
- Your ERP's inventory module cannot represent how goods move.
Before you build or buy
- Walk the floor on a busy day and draw the real flow: receive, put away, pick, pack, ship, return.
- Write down handling rules: FIFO or FEFO, hazmat, temperature, fragile, oversized.
- Design the location scheme, for example aisle, bay, level and position, and label the racks physically before go-live.
- Clean the item master: units of measure, dimensions, weights and barcodes.
- List every system that must exchange data: ERP, storefronts, carriers, label printers, EDI.
- Choose devices and printers, and run a Wi-Fi survey of every aisle and dock door. Test label stock and printers on real labels.
- Decide the picking method by lines per order and SKU density: single-order, batch, wave or zone.
- Slot fast movers near shipping by velocity class.
Labels and identifiers
- Use GTINs on cases and items where your suppliers and customers already do.
- Print SSCC pallet labels in GS1-128 where retailers require them.
- Give every pallet or tote a license plate so movements are scans, not typing.
Inventory rules to define
- Statuses: available, quarantine, damaged, on hold.
- Receiving tolerances for over, short and damaged.
- Cycle-count frequency by class, blind counts, and variance thresholds that need approval.
- The returns flow: inspect, decide restock, refurbish or scrap, and post.
During implementation
- Test with your products and your pickers, not only the project team.
- Rehearse receiving, picking and shipping on a copy of live data more than once.
- Train in small groups on the floor with the real devices.
- Take a full count as the starting point and reconcile it to the system.
- Set parallel-run or rollback criteria before go-live. Roll out one zone or one client first where possible.
The first month after go-live
- Have someone from the project on the floor for the first shifts.
- Track pick accuracy, dock-to-stock time and count variance from day one.
- Collect small annoyances daily and fix the quick ones fast, because staff trust the system when it stops getting in their way.
- Review at 30 days and plan the next round.