Warehouse Management System (WMS) Audit in 10 Days
COMITAS approached us for an audit of its Warehouse Management System (WMS) in order to decide on the collaboration with its vendor and further improvement of the product under the COMITAS WMS joint brand name. This case study tells what aspects of the WMS we analyzed and what risks we identified.
Customer
COMITAS is the first Russian system integrator in the field of warehouse and industrial logistics. The company designs and equips premises and develops software to automate them. Thanks to cooperation with international experts, COMITAS offers its customers world-class innovative solutions.
Product
WMS (Warehouse Management System) is an adaptable system for optimizing warehouse operations, which significantly improves the efficiency of solving logistics problems, from inventory management to quality control.
Task
Explore the software for compliance with current requirements and further technical development prospects.
Objects of the audit:
- current technological stack;
- product architecture and component model;
- current integration options;
- module for setting up and managing operational business processes;
- module for user, group and role access permission management.
Result
We gave the customer a detailed report on the software audit and highlighted possible risks. Below are examples of findings and recommendations for several blocks.
The risk of providing the product without the expertise transfer
If you are buying an out-of-the-box IT system without documentation and logic description, the new team onboarding may be of poor quality or take too much time. There is a risk that developers will find "superficial" solutions that may not be optimal. And you will not be able to make changes to the system sooner or later.
How to minimize the risk: a contract with the system authors for 6-12 months to transfer the expertise to a new team of architects and analysts.
Resource risk
Developers of the .Net stack will not be excited to make improvements by modifying XML files, which will result in employee burnout and churn.
How to minimize the risk: when developing projects with the proposed WMS, it is necessary to involve not only .Net stack developers, but also experts who develop XML configuration files.
Technologies
.Net, Microsoft SQL Server, Razor Pages, Android