The SMB Innovation Summit is back. S/4 HANA Cloud, SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One will all be on the agenda for Summit. More information here.

The fantastic news at the Summit in Orlando is you can meet our USA distributor Linfa System Solutions. Linfa System Solutions has been implementing and supporting The RIC Group's WMS and TMS software for customers in USA.

The business needs of scalability and visibility are words we hear all the time. Watch the video and hear from our customers talking about these key points.

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Streamline and grow your business with The RIC Group's Warehouse Management Solution for Dynamics 365 Business Central. Our Warehouse Management Solution is scalable and flexible to serve the unique needs of your business.

Our supply chain solutions drive real results for customers. With a loosely coupled architecture it allows our WMS and TMS to integrate with different ERP's such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as a Best of Breed solution.

Release the Sales Order in Dynamics 365 Business Central and it flows through to our advanced WMS and TMS. All using oAuth2.0 and azure identity.

Costs rise and market pressures force companies to accept smaller margins. It isn't really labour that drives the costs, but time. The days, weeks and months it takes for an initial order to turn into a shipped product.

​​Speedpanel embraces the digital revolution with deploying a digital supply chain solution throughout the manufacturing process.

One of the keys of good software is to ensure your application is endorsed by the Vendor. Is the application certified? All good scalable applications will be certified by the Vendor. This is one of the key reasons we ensure our Supply Chain Solution stays certified with SAP Business One.

​The certification process shows that our technology integrates smoothly with SAP Business One, which gives our customers total confidence in their investment decision. This helps our customers become best-run, intelligent enterprises.
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The Federal Government announced a ​tax deduction for Australian small business to support technology and training investment in this financial year. Further information here.

This is fantastic news for companies who want to embrace new technology and invest in digital technology.

If you have been waiting to implement a Warehouse Management Solution now is the time. Contact our sales team on sales@thericgroup.com
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A Warehouse Management Solution (WMS) is required when the current ERP (Accounting System) cannot adequately manage inventory, operations and process. Warehouses can benefit from a WMS system especially if there has been an increase in labour costs. With the current environment many distribution businesses are growing dramatically. With this there is a key need for operational accuracies, as picking accuracy can be fairly significant issues not only for customer satisfaction but also regard to carrying costs and overall labour needs.

ERP Systems often struggle with warehouse management. Even with the latest releases today of some ERP's such as Netsuite, MYOB Advanced they typically do not have the capabilities to manage the complexities of modern warehouses. For example, many ERP's and ERP WMS modules struggle with managing all the tracking of inventory movements. You may need to run replenishment with FIFO rules and track pallets by bin location. With the current environment there is a complete need for pallet management in the warehouse and manage slotting.

We also see ERP WMS modules have trouble handling catch weight. The inability to manage multiple units of measure properly, such as product is ordered in units and invoiced in weight. From here the ERP WMS modules struggle to scan and capture the number of cartons and capturing the weight for each carton and parsing this information back to the ERP. Typically we see the need to manage GS-1 128, 2D and HIBC barcodes in the food and medical industry as well.

From experience the ERP WMS modules seem to typically rely on manual data entry and redundant steps. Best of Breed WMS will allow for scanning at all operations including command barcodes. There will also be an audit on all scans to capture information for KPI's and dashboards.

With Labour Costs growing disproportionately with revenue and volume growth, only the right WMS system can level the playing field. Our WMS from The RIC Group can help improve operational accuracies, order fill rate and lower labour costs.

The other point that is really important is to choose a WMS that can meet your needs today and scale over time.
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Since Covid-19 pandemic most organisations no longer have the resources to spend big on WMS implementations so what will the ROI be on the WMS project is an important question. At The RIC Group we have always believed in an incremental approach for WMS projects. 

Our WMS and TMS projects always use an intelligent phased implementation. We  deliver an agile and phased approach while transforming businesses to drive results. The Intelligent Phased approach to implementation allows customers to go live quickly, allows customers to drive fast time to value and better ROI.

The gain of investment is the amount of money you stand to gain from implementing the new software system. When implementing Warehouse Management Solution one of the safeguards the right WMS solution will do is dramatically reduce the number of returns you receive from your customers. The money you don't pay in credits and the time for processing the return is a gain in investment.

WMS should bring in efficiencies. It is important to remember where all the efficiencies come in as well when implementing a Warehouse Management Solution. When processing orders manually customers should remember that often pieces of paper are printed, and then written on by pickers and packers, and then administration staff receive the paper and have to then manually enter in the information from the piece of paper. The printing of pick slips, writing on paper and staff then entering the information back into the ERP manually can be automated. With The RIC Group's WMS there is automation. The picking slips are displayed automatically digitally on the RF or Tablet device, capturing the pick and pack qty's are through the WMS and the update to the ERP is completed via automation. This means there is efficiencies gained in the overall process of picking orders. In other instances the Warehouse Management Solution could be replacing an older WMS which is costing money to run. The money you will not spend to run the old system will also be a gain of investment.
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With overall efficiencies there is a decrease in costs.

Cost of the investment is the money you spend on implementing and maintaining the new software system. There can be additional costs which are above the licencing fees, support, subscription and deployment. When staff are training in the new system, educating themselves on the new system this is opportunity cost. There will be a period of diminished productivity during this time as well while staff adjust to the new system.

WMS serves as a connection point for transparency across your supply chain from production to last mile delivery. When you are selecting a Warehouse Management Solution for your business it is now more imperative than ever to ensure the WMS can connect with the Freight providers.

One of the recent changes since the pandemic is that the majority of freight providers have changed to a Rest API for the infrastructure for integration. FTP is not the way and majority of freight providers are now offering Rest API for integration. This adds security and also gives far greater integration points to add to customer service for the customer.

​​WMS integrated with the freight solution gives fantastic transparency on the supply chain. For example we have  companies who want to see when consignments were created vs when consignments were picked up. There is a need to look at when consignments created, consignments picked up and when consignments were delivered. Customers have to measure last mile delivery and if it is being effective keeping loyalty from their customers.

With our WMS solution there is no more need to go into Freight portals to follow all this up when there is integration from the WMS to the freight providers via Rest API. Our Warehouse Management Solution provides our customers all this information. They can view the manifest to know exactly what will be loaded onto the freight truck, they can reprint manifest to view at later dates, view information of LxWxH and weight for every carton that was loaded onto the truck. This information was kept by so many customers via paper.

With our WMS there is automation of sms or email from the completed pick to the customer. This helps with transparency again. It shows the customer from the time of receiving the order, to the time it was picked and completed ready for delivery.

​When you are selecting your WMS provider you have to ensure you have flexibility. Today you may be shipping your goods via TNT, and tomorrow it is Capital Transport and the year after it is Direct Freight. To ensure your business is future-proof select a WMS provider that gives you that flexibility on integration points and has proof of doing it.

See below for our example labels of TNT, Capital Transport and Direct Freight integration.

​​Bakers Maison freezers run at -18 degrees and with cold stores they must adhere to safety requirements with temperature control, batch, lot, use-by and shelf life, blast freezing and more.
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With The RIC Group's Warehouse Management Solution it has given Bakers Maison total inventory control. The WMS has been critical for manufacturing on time and the benefits have been enormous.

Contact us at sales@thericgroup.com for further information on our supply chain solutions.
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