Achieving the Impossible?

Having worked in Warehouse Management System (WMS) delivery for twenty plus years I have seen a few interesting challenges. The JDA/RedPrairie Dispatcher WMS solution originally developed in the UK, owned by LIS in the 80’s and 90’s, bought by RedPrairie in 2004 and now part of the one Billion $+ Company JDA Software; has been implemented in forty-two counties around the Globe. My claim to fame (if fame is of any value) is many of the countries (42) this solution has been installed into, I have been heavily involved with. This was achieved by working with local experts supported by the people that are now, some years later, working within the Socius24 team.

In my experience over these year, and within a large business, we may have had a new customer go-live every few months. Often RedPrairie would kick start a roll-out for say a major 3PL and then they themselves would, over time, implement several more additional sites.

So why am I telling you this? In the month of October 2017 Socius24 Implemented Four New Dispatcher WMS sites within an amazing six days! This was not by design, ideally, we like go-lives to be staged for planning, resourcing, physical coverage, contingency planning, customer business continuity etc.

But, each customer had compelling reasons why they had to be live before the Christmas rush, system change lock-down, budgeting and system go-live readiness. The risks to go or not to go were discussed and although Soicus24 are a relatively small team we agreed that each individual business had to meet their system go-live and business objectives/deadlines. The question was could a relatively small (albeit highly experienced and seasoned) team achieve what no one else had ever managed in the past…

More to follow…