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A warehouse management system, or WMS, is a key part of the supply chain and primarily aims to control the movement and storage of materials within a warehouse and process the associated transactions, including shipping, receiving, putaway and picking. The systems also direct and optimize stock putaway based on real-time information about the status of bin utilization.

A Warehouse management systems often utilize Auto ID Data Capture technology, such as barcode scanners, mobile computers, wireless LANs and potentially RFID to efficiently monitor the flow of products. Once data has been collected, there is either a batch synchronization with, or a real-time wireless transmission to a central database. The database can then provide useful reports about the status of goods in the warehouse.

The objective of a warehouse management system is to provide a set of computerised procedures to handle the receipt of stock and returns into a warehouse facility, model and manage the logical representation of the physical storage facilities (e.g. racking etc), manage the stock within the facility and enable a seamless link to order processing and logistics management in order to pick, pack and ship product out of the facility.

Warehouse management systems can be stand alone systems, or modules of an ERP system or supply chain execution suite.

The primary purpose of a WMS is to control the movement and storage of materials within a warehouse - you might even describe it as the legs at the end-of-the line which automates the store, traffic and shipping management.

In its simplest form, the WMS can data track products during the production process and act as an interpreter and message buffer between existing ERP and WMS systems.