3PL Warehousing and System Integrations
Third Party Logistics (3PL) warehousing has changed a lot in the last 35 years since we (Camelot 3PL Software) first started offering warehousing software to customers in the U.S. and Canada. In the “good ol’ days” warehouse clients would simply call or fax information about their order or an inbound shipment to the warehouse. Most of that information was recorded on paper or if you were really sophisticated, a spreadsheet. Long gone are the days where the main function of the 3PL warehouse was moving pallets in and out of the warehouse. Today, 3PL warehouses must be efficient moving inventory AND data, which requires competencies in both physical inventory management and information technology. The modern warehouse management system (WMS) is not a stand-alone system, but part of a connected network of data centers that facilitate the efficient exchange of information.
Integration, simply put, is a connection of systems and sharing of data. Warehouse management systems require data to help 3PLs manage their warehouse effectively. There are various types of information/data that support different processes which we will dive into.
eCommerce Fulfillment
With Commerce Fulfilment, you cannot perform the physical order management without order data. Order data originates from the sales site that a customer places an order from. This is typically through an online retail website, a shopping cart platform, and/or marketplace. A lot of these merchants are outsourcing the fulfillment (storage and shipping functions) to their 3PL partners. So that means this order data needs to be shared with the 3PL partners. Each 3PL utilizes different internal WMS systems to manage the orders. So an integration between the order platform and WMS systems is necessary to share this information. To keep the integrations will all of the various shopping carts and marketplace platforms up-to-date Camelot partners with 3rd party integration specialists like DropStream and Techdinamics.
Within the WMS, the 3PL is empowered to efficiently pick, pack and prepare orders for shipping. In one form or another, information needs to be shared with carrier systems to manifest each package for shipping. Rather than building connections to all of the various carrier systems, another option is to use a shipping solutions provider like DesktopShipper. DesktopShipper provides an excellent platform for a 3PL to communicate with multiple carriers’ systems at the same time for things like address validation, rate shopping, batch processes and other cost-effective shipping features. Once a shipping method has been determined for an order/package, a carrier-compliant label is can be produced and the package is staged and ready for the carrier to pick up.
After the order has been manifested, this shipping data and order status information is then shared back to the originating order source. The customer can now be provided with the status of the order and tracking information for their purchase. The shopping cart and/or merchant platform also receives real-time inventory level data to prevent overselling of specific products.
As you can see, eCommerce operations use integrations for data gathering to support the core function of order fulfillment and keeping customers informed of their purchase status and delivery. When 3PL warehouses use a shipping solutions provider like DesktopShipper they are able to provide better shipping options for their customers and fewer shipping errors with increased efficiency.